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Several original PNAC members, including [[Richard Bruce Dick Cheney|Cheney]], Khalilzad and the Bush family, have ties to the [[oil industry]]. Many other members have been long-time fixtures in the U.S. military establishment or Cold War "strategic studies," including [[Elliott Abrams]], [[Dick Cheney]], [[Paula Dobriansky]], [[Aaron Friedberg]], [[Frank Gaffney]], [[Fred C. Ikle]], [[Peter W. Rodman]], [[Stephen P. Rosen]], [[Henry S. Rowen]], [[Donald H. Rumsfeld]], [[John R. Bolton]], [[Vin Weber]], and [[Paul Dundes Wolfowitz]]. It should not be surprising, therefore, that while the group devotes inordinate attention to Iraq, its most general focus has been on a need to "re-arm America." The prospect of mining oil riches may explain part of the group's focus on Iraq, but this motivation has been buried under the rhetoric of national security and the need for strong national defense.

To justify a need to "rearm" the country, however, reasons must be found. In the more peaceable world of the late 1990s, with no rival super-power in sight, Iraq and "ballistic missile defense" against "[[rogue state]]s" were the main games in town. The group's links to advocacy for ballistic missile defense came through Donald Rumsfeld, who in 1998 chaired a bi-partisan commission on the "US Ballistic Missile Threat" and Vin Weber, a