You're right, and you're wrong
The only justifiable reason for manned return to the Moon now is to build CAPS, the Comet and Asteroid Protection System. Senior NASA management refused to even acknowledge the work of their own engineers.
What appears to have happened was that China considered CAPS while drafting its long term space plans in 2000. US knowledge of this in turn led
W. to respond, first by planning to beat China to the Moon, and if that didn't work by beating China to Mars.
Neither really matters. What matters is CAPS.