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Formed The PNAC was [http://www.newamericancentury.org/robertkaganbio.htm co-founded] by [[William Kristol]] and [[Robert Kagan]] in 1997, [http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/iraq/etc/cron.html with roots in the 1992 Pentagon], PNAC's original 25 signitaries signatories were an eclectic mix of academics and [[conservative]] politicians, several of whom have subsequently found positions in the presidential administration of [[George Walker Bush]]. PNAC is noteworthy for its focus on [[Iraq]], a preoccupation that began before Bush became president and predates the [[terrorist]] attacks of [[September 11, 2001]]. In 1998, the group wrote a [http://www.newamericancentury.org/iraqclintonletter.htm letter] to President [[Bill Clinton]], Mississippi Senator [[Trent Lott]] (then Senate Majority Leader) and [[Newt Gingrich]] (then Speaker of the House of Representatives), demanding a harder line against Iraq. By then, the group had grown in numbers, adding individuals such as former [[Ronald Reagan|Reagan]]-era [[U.N.]] Ambassador [[Jeane J. Kirkpatrick]], and long-time Washington cold warrior/pro-[[Likud []][Richard N. Perle]].
*[http://www.newamericancentury.org/danielmckiverganbio.htm Daniel McKivergan], Deputy Director.* [[Richard N. Perle]], an [[American Enterprise Institute|AEI]] associate, former [[Reagan administration]] official, and member (and former chairman) of the [[Defense Policy Board]].
*[[Robert Kagan]]
*[[Randy Scheunemann]]
updating links, tidy
The '''Project for the New American Century''' (PNAC) is a [[neo-conservative ]] [[think tank]] with strong ties to the [[American Enterprise Institute]]. PNAC's web site says it was "established in the spring of 1997" as "a non-profit, educational organization whose goal is to promote American global leadership." Their PNAC's policy document, "[http://www.newamericancentury.org/RebuildingAmericasDefenses.pdf Rebuilding America's Defences]," openly advocates for total global military domination. Many PNAC members hold [[Bush administration: Project for the New American Century|highest-level positions]] in the G.[[George W. Bush]] [[Bush administration|administration]].
The Project is an initiative of the [[New Citizenship Project]] ([[501c3]]).
== History ==
According to [[William Rivers Pitt]], "Two events brought PNAC into the mainstream of American government: the disputed election of George W. Bush and the attacks of [[September 11, 2001|September 11th]]. When Bush assumed the Presidency, the men who created and nurtured the imperial dreams of PNAC became the men who run the [[Pentagon]], the [[Defense Department]] and the White House. When the [[World Trade Center|Towers ]] came down, these men saw, at long last, their chance to turn their White Papers into substantive policy."[http://truthout.org/docs_02/022203A.htm]
Several original PNAC members, including [[Richard Bruce Dick Cheney|Cheney]], [[Zalmay Khalilzad |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
registered lobbyist for [[Lockheed Martin]] and other Fortune 500 companies.
According to a February 27, 2003 , editorial by William Rivers Pitt, PNAC:has been agitating since its inception for a war with Iraq. PNAC was the driving force behind the drafting and passage of the [[Iraqi Liberation Act]], a bill that painted a veneer of legality over the ultimate designs behind such a conflict. The names of every prominent PNAC member were on a [http://www.newamericancentury.org/iraqclintonletter.htm letter] delivered to President [[Bill Clinton|Clinton ]] in 1998 which castigated him for not implementing the Act by driving troops into Baghdad.
:PNAC has funneled millions of taxpayer dollars to a [[Saddam Hussein |Hussein]] opposition group called the [[Iraqi National Congress]], and to Iraq's heir-apparent, [[Ahmed Chalabi]], despite the fact that Chalabi was sentenced in absentia by a Jordanian court to 22 years in prison on 31 counts of bank fraud. Chalabi and the INC have, over the years, gathered support for their cause by promising oil contracts to anyone that would help to put them in power in Iraq.
:Most recently, PNAC created a new group called the [[Committee for the Liberation of Iraq]]. Staffed entirely by PNAC members, The Committee has set out to "educate" Americans via cable news connections about the need for [[war in Iraq]]. This group met recently with National Security Advisor [[Condoleezza Rice]] regarding the ways and means of this education. ...
:The Project for the New American Century seeks to establish what they call '[[Pax Americana]]' across the globe. Essentially, their goal is to transform America, the sole remaining superpower, into a planetary empire by force of arms. A report released by PNAC in September of 2000 entitled '[http://www.newamericancentury.org/RebuildingAmericasDefenses.pdf Rebuilding America's Defenses]' codifies this plan, which requires a massive increase in defense spending and the fighting of several major theater wars in order to establish American dominance. The first has been achieved in Bush's new budget plan, which calls for the exact dollar amount to be spent on defense that was requested by PNAC in 2000. Arrangements are underway for the fighting of the wars.[http://truthout.org/docs_03/022803A.shtml]
* "Facing up to the realities of multiple constabulary missions that will require a permanent allocation of U.S. forces."
* "America must defend its homeland" by "reconfiguring its nuclear force" and by missile defense systems that "counteract the effects of the proliferation of ballistic missiles and [[weapons of mass destruction]]."
* "Need for a larger U.S. security perimeter" and the U.S. "should seek to establish a network of 'deployment bases' or 'forward operating bases' to increase the reach of current and future forces," citing the need to move beyond Western Europe and Northeast Asia to increased permanent military presence in Southeast Asia and "other regions of East Asia." Necessary "to cope with the rise of [[China ]] to great-power status."
* Redirecting the U.S. Air Force to move "toward a global first-strike force."
* End the [[Clinton administration]]'s "devotion" to the Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty.
[http://rightweb.irc-online.org/charts/pnac-chart.htm Source]
*[[Elliott Abrams]], a former [[Ronald Reagan|Reagan]]-era Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs. During the [[Iran/Contra scandal]], Abrams pleaded guilty to two misdemeanor counts of lying to Congress but was later pardoned by the first Bush administration. He subsequently became president of the [[Ethics and Public Policy Center]]. He is currently a member of Bush's [[National Security Council]].*[[Gary Bauer]], a [[Republican Party|Republican]] presidential candidate in 2000, who currently is president of an organization named [http://www.ouramericanvalues.org/ American Values].*[[William J. Bennett]], who served during the Reagan and [[George H.W. Bush administration|first Bush administrations administration]]s as U.S. Secretary of Education and Drug Czar. Upon leaving government office, Bennett became a "distinguished fellow" at the conservative [[Heritage Foundation]], co-founded [[Empower America]], and established himself as a self-proclaimed expert on morality with his authorship of [http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN%3D0671683063/thecenterformediA ''The Book of Virtues''].
*[[Jeb Bush]], the son of former President [[George Herbert Walker Bush]] and brother of current President George W. Bush. At the time of PNAC's founding, Jeb Bush was a candidate for the Florida governor's seat, a position which he currently holds.
*[[Richard Bruce Dick Cheney|Dick Cheney]], the former White House Chief of Staff to [[Gerald R. Ford]], six-term Congressman, and Secretary of Defense to the first President [[George H.W. Bush|Bush]], was serving as president of the oil-services giant [[Halliburton Company]] at the time of PNAC's founding. He subsequently became U.S. vice president under George W. Bush.
*[[Eliot A. Cohen]], a professor of strategic studies at John Hopkins University
*[[Paula Dobriansky]], vice president and director of the Washington office of the [[Council on Foreign Relations]]. Currently Dobriansky serves in the Bush administration as Undersecretary of State for Global Affairs.
*[[Steve Forbes]], publisher, billionaire, and Republican presidential candidate in 1996 and 2000. Forbes has also campaigned actively on behalf of the "flat tax," which would reduce the federal tax burden for wealthy individuals like himself.
*[[Aaron Friedberg]], professor of politics and international affairs; Director, [[Center of International Studies]]; Director, Research Program in International Security, Woodrow Wilson School, Princeton University.
*[[Francis Fukuyama]], author of [http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN%3D0380720027/thecenterformediA ''The End of History and the Last Man'']; Dean of the Faculty and Bernard L. Schwartz Professor of International Political Economy at the [[Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) at Johns Hopkins University]]. Appointed to the [[President's Council on Bioethics]] by George W. Bush, January 2002.
*[[Frank Gaffney]] - conservative columnist; founder and president of the [[Center for Security Policy]] in Washington, D.C. Web-site: http://www.centerforsecuritypolicy.org/
*[[Fred C. Ikle]], "distinguished scholar" at the [[Center for Strategic and International Studies]]
*[[Donald Kagan]], professor of history and classics at Yale University and the author of books including ''While America Sleeps: Self-Delusion, Military Weakness, and the Threat to Peace Today''; ''A Twilight Struggle: American Power and Nicaragua, 1977-1990''; and ''The Origins of War and the Preservation of Peace.'' Kagan is also a senior associate at the [[Carnegie Endowment for International Peace]], a contributing editor at the [[Weekly Standard]] and a [[Washington Post]] columnist, a member of the [[Council on Foreign Relations]] and the Alexander Hamilton fellow in American diplomatic history at American University. Past experience includes: Deputy for Policy in the State Department's Bureau of Inter-American Affairs (1985-1988); State Department's Policy Planning Staff member (1984-1985); speechwriter to Secretary of State [[George P. Shultz]] (1984-1985); foreign policy advisor to Congressman [[Jack Kemp]] (1983); Special Assistant to the Deputy Director of the [[United States Information Agency]] (1983); Assistant Editor at the [[Public Interest]] (1981).
*[[Zalmay Khalilzad]], an Afghan-American who was the only Muslim among the group's original signatories and the only signatory who was not a native-born U.S. citizen. Khalilzad has became the Bush administration's special envoy to Afganistan [[Afghanistan]] after the fall of the [[Taliban ]] as well as is special envoy to the Iraqi opposition to [[Saddam Hussein]]. Khalilzad has written about [[information warfare]], and in 1996 (in pre-Taliban days), he served as a consultant to the oil company [[Unocal Corporation]] (UNOCAL) regarding a "risk analysis" for its proposed pipeline project through Afghanistan and [[Pakistan]].
*[[William Kristol]], PNAC's chairman, is also editor of the [[Weekly Standard]], a Washington-based political magazine. His past involvements have included: lead of the [[Project for the Republican Future]], chief of staff to Vice President [[J. Danforth Quayle]], chief of staff to Secretary of Education [[William J. Bennett]] under the Reagan administration, taught politics at the University of Pennsylvania and Harvard's Kennedy School of Government.
*[[I. Lewis Scooter Libby]], who later became chief of staff for Vice President Dick Cheney.
*[[Norman Podhoretz]], a senior fellow at the [[Hudson Institute]] and author of works such as ''Patriotism and its Enemies''.
*[[J. Danforth Quayle]], former vice president under President George Herbert Walker Bush and a presidential candidate himself in 1996.
*[[Stephen P. Rosen]], Beton Michael Kaneb Professor of National Security and Military Affairs at Harvard University.
*[[Henry S. Rowen]] was president of the [[RAND Corporation]] from 1967-1972. He served under former presidents Reagan and Bush as chairman of the [[National Intelligence Council]] (1981-83) and Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs (1989-91). He currently holds the title of "senior fellow" at the [[Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace]]
*[[Donald H. Rumsfeld]] served former President [[Gerald R. Ford]] as chief of transition after [[Richard M. Nixon]]'s resignation, later becoming Ford's chief of staff and secretary of defense from 1974-75. He subsequently served from 1990-93 as CEO of [[General Instrument Corporation ]] and later as Chairman of the Board of [[Gilead Sciences]], a pharmaceutical company. In 1998 he served as chairman of the bi-partisan US Ballistic Missile Threat Commission. Under President George W. Bush, he once again assumed the post of Secretary of Defense.*[[Vin Weber]], a former Republican congressman from Minnesota, is now a well-connected [[lobbyist ]] who has represented such firms as [[AT&T]], [[Lockheed Martin ]] and [[Microsoft]]. Veber Weber is also vice chairman of [[Empower America]] and a former fellow of the [[Progress and Freedom Foundation]].*[[George Weigel]], a Roman Catholic religious and political commentator, is a "senior fellow" at the [[Ethics and Public Policy Center]].
*[[Paul Dundes Wolfowitz]], formerly Dean and Professor of International Relations at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University, became Undersecretary of Defense for President George W. Bush in 2001.
=== Other PNAC members (Updated October 31, 2005)===* [[John R. Bolton]], Undersecretary for Arms Control and International Security in the Bush administration.*[[Ellen Bork]], [http://www.newamericancentury.org/ellenborkbio.htm Ellen Bork], Deputy Director].
*[[Thomas Donnelly]], Senior Fellow.
*[[Daniel McKiverganReuel Marc Gerecht]], Deputy Director*[http://www.newamericancentury.org/reuelmarcgerechtbio.htm Reuel Marc Gerecht], Senior Fellow], Director of the [[Middle East Initiative]].*[[Mark Gerson]], [http://www.newamericancentury.org/markgersonbio.htm Project Director].*[[Michael Goldfarb]], [http://www.newamericancentury.org/aboutpnac.htm Research Associate].*[[Bruce P. Jackson]], President of the [[Project on Transitional Democracies]]. He is also a member of the [[Council on Foreign Relations]] and the [[International Institute for Strategic Studies]]. He is on the Board of Advisors of the [[Center for Security Policy]]. He is the President of the [[U.S. Committee on NATO]]. Past experience includes: US Army intelligence (1979-1990), Office of the Secretary of Defense (1986-1990), chief strategist of proprietary trade operations at [[Lehman Brothers]] (1990-1993), high level management positions at [[Martin Marietta]] and [[Lockheed Corporation]] (1993-1999?).*[[Robert Kagan]], [http://www.newamericancentury.org/robertkaganbio.htm PNAC Co-founder and Project Director].*[[Timothy Lehmann]], [http://www.newamericancentury.org/aboutpnac.htm Assistant Director].*[[Daniel McKivergan]], [http://www.newamericancentury.org/danielmckiverganbio.htm Deputy Director].
*[[Christopher Maletz]], Assistant Director.
*[[Gary Schmitt]], Executive Director.
* [[Randy Scheunemann]], [http://www.newamericancentury.org/randyscheunemannbio.htm Project Director], President of the [[Committee for the Liberation of Iraq]], served as an advisor to [[Donald Rumsfeld|Rumsfeld]] on Iraq in 2001. ====Non-overlapping signatories to a Jan. January 28, 2005 , letter to Congress====
[http://www.newamericancentury.org/defense-20050128.htm Source]
*[[Peter Beinart]]
*[[Buster C. Glosson]]
*[[Frederick Kagan]]
*[[Craig Kennedy]]
*[[Paul Kennedy]]
*[[Robert Killebrew]]
*[[Will Marshall]]
*[[Clifford D. May]]
*[[Barry R. McCaffrey]]
*[[Joshua Muravchik]]
*[[Stephen P. Rosen]]
*[[Robert H. Scales]]
*[[Walter Slocombe]]
*[[James B. Steinberg]]
See the [http://rightweb.irc-online.org/org/pnac.html ''Right Web'' Profile].
== Funding ==
*[http://www.newamericancentury.org/iraq-20030328.htm Second Statement on Post-War Iraq], Project for the New American Century, March 28, 2003.
== Other Related SourceWatch Resources ==
*[[American Enterprise Institute]]
*[[Balkan Action Committee]]
*[[Project on Transitional Democracies]]
*[[Prodemca]] (Friends of the Democratic Center in Central America)
*[[regime change]]
*[[U.S. Committee on NATO]]
== External Resources ==
*The [http://pnac.info PNAC Info] weblog is devoted to exposing PNAC and "its plan for a 'unipolar' world."
*[http://194.183.22.90/ips/eng.NSF/vwWEBMainView?SearchView&Query=%28PNAC%29+&SearchMax=0&SearchOrder=3 at IPS] reverse date sort. ===2001===
*Jason Vest, [http://www.prospect.org/print/V12/19/vest-j.html Bush's War Hawk], ''The American Prospect'', November 5, 2001.
===2002===*Brian Whitaker, "[http://www.guardian.co.uk/elsewhere/journalist/story/0,7792,777100,00.html "US Think Tanks Give Lessons in Foreign Policy]," ] ''Guardian'' (UK), August 19, 2002.*Tom Barry, "[http://www.presentdangercbsnews.orgcom/frontierstories/2002/1031neocon09/04/september11/main520830.shtml "Plans For Iraq Attack Began On 9/11,"] CBS News, September 4, 2002.*Neil Mackay, [http://www.sundayherald.html PNACcom/27735 "Bush planned Iraq 'regime change'S Present Dangers As Blueprint for Bush Doctrinebefore becoming President,"]''Sunday Herald'' (UK), September 15, 2002.*Jay Bookman," [http://www.fpifinformationclearinghouse.orginfo/ Foreign Policy article2319.htm "The president's real goal in FocusIraq,"]''Atlanta Journal-Constitution'' (''Information Clearinghouse''), October 31September 29, 2002.*Tom Barry and Jim Lobe, "[http://www.fpif.org/papers/02men/ "The Men Who Stole the Show,"]Foreign Policy In Focus," October 2002.*Neil MackyJoe Taglieri, "[http://www.sundayheraldfromthewilderness.com/print27735 free/ww3/100102_bush_advisors.html "Bush planned Advisers Planned Iraq 'regime change' before becoming President]War Since 1990s," ] ''Sunday HeraldFrom The Wilderness'' (UK), September 15October 1, 2002.*Joe TaglieriTom Barry, "[http://www.fromthewildernesspresentdanger.comorg/freefrontier/ww32002/100102_bush_advisors1031neocon.html "PNAC'S Present Dangers As Blueprint for Bush Advisers Planned Iraq War Since 1990s]Doctrine," ''From The Wilderness''] Foreign Policy In Focus, October 131, 2002.
*Laura Miller, "[http://www.prwatch.org/prwissues/2002Q4/war.html War is Sell]," ''PR Watch'', 4th Quarter 2002. This report includes information about PNAC and related organizations supporting and pushing for the war on Iraq.
===2003===*[[William Rivers Pitt]], "[http://truthout.org/docs_02/022203A.htm Of Gods and Mortals and Empire]," February 21, 2003 editorial for [http://truthout.org/ Truthout].*[[William Rivers Pitt]], "[http://truthout.org/docs_03/022803A.shtml Blood Money]," February 27, 2003 editorial for [http://truthout.org/ Truthout].*Joseph Cirincione, [http://www.carnegieendowment.org/publications/index.cfm?fa=view&id=1214 "Origins of Regime Change in Iraq,"] Proliferation Brief Vol. 6, No. 5, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, March 19, 2003.
*Robert Dreyfuss, [http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2003/03/ma_273_01.html The Thirty-Year Itch], ''Mother Jones'', March/April 2003.
*Von Jochen Bölsche, "[http://www.spiegel.de/politik/ausland/0,1518,238643,00.html The war designed in a think tank]" (German), [http://www.spiegel.de ''Der Spiegel''], March 4, 2003. This report describes how Bush's current policies toward Iraq mirrors PNAC's blueprint for war before Bush took office.
*ABC's [http://abcnews.go.com/Sections/Nightline/ Nightline], hosted by Ted Koppel, featured a program about PNAC on Wednesday, March 5, 2003. See "[http://abcnews.go.com/sections/nightline/DailyNews/pnac_030310.html "The Plan: Were Neo-Conservatives' 1998 Memos a Blueprint for Iraq War?"]," March 10, 2003.*[[Joseph Cirincione]], [http://freshair.npr.org/day_fa.jhtml?display=day&todayDate=04/01/2003 Interview by Terry Gross], ''Fresh Air'', April 1, 2003.
*Bruce Murphy, [http://www.jsonline.com/news/gen/apr03/131523.asp Neoconservative clout seen in U.S. Iraq policy], ''Milwaukee Journal Sentinel'' On-line, April 5, 2003.
*Neil Mackay, [http://www.sundayherald.com/print34271 No weapons in Iraq? We'll find them in Iran], ''Sunday Herald'', June 1, 2003.
*Jim Lobe, [http://www.ipsnews.net/interna.asp?idnews=19255 "Key Officials Used 9/11 As Pretext for Iraq War,"], ''IPS'', July 15 July , 2003: "A close examination of the public record indicates that all of these individuals -- both in and outside the administration -- were actively preparing the ground within days, even hours, after the 9/11 attacks, for an eventual attack on Iraq, whether or not it had any role in the attacks or any connection to al Qaeda. The challenge, in their view, was to persuade the public that such links either did indeed exist or were sufficiently likely to exist that a preventive strike against Iraq was warranted. Their success in that respect was stunning, although, in order to pull it off, they also had to distort and exaggerate the evidence being collected by U.S. intelligence agencies." See [[cooked intelligence]].*Bernard Weiner, [http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article3544.htm "A PNAC Primer,"], ''informationclearinghouse'', May 7, 2003. ===2004===*William Bunch, [http://foi.missouri.edu/polinfoprop/invading.html "Invading Iraq not a new idea for Bush clique. 4 years before 9/11, plan was set,"] ''Philly.com'' (Freedom of Information Center), January 14, 2004.*Jason Leopold, [http://www.liberalslant.com/jl011904.htm "Paul O'Neill's Claims Against Bush Supported By 1998 'War' Letters to Clinton Signed By Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz,"], ''liberalslant.comLiberal Slant'', January 19, 2004. ===2005===*[http://www.csmonitor.com/specials/neocon/index.html?leftNavInclude "Empire Builders. Neoconservatives and their blueprint for US power,"] ''Christian Science Monitor'', Updated June 2005.
