Project For A New American Century

The Project for the New American Century (PNAC) is an American neo-conservative think tank based in Washington, D.C., co-founded as "a non-profit educational organization" by William Kristol and Robert Kagan in early 1997. The PNAC's stated goal is "to promote American global leadership." Fundamental to the PNAC are the views that "American leadership is both good for America and good for the world" and support for "a Reaganite policy of military strength and moral clarity." It has exerted strong influence on high-level U.S. government officials in the administration of U.S President George W. Bush and strongly affected the Bush administration's development of military and foreign policies, especially involving national security.
An initiative of the New Citizenship Project, a 501(c) organization headed by William Kristol (Chairman) and Gary Schmitt (President), the Project for the New American Century was funded in part by such organizations as the Sarah Scaife Foundation, the John M. Olin Foundation and the Bradley Foundation.

On January 26, 1998, in the PNAC's open letter to President Bill Clinton, its members explicitly called for a U.S. ground campaign to oust Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq.

All they needed was a "new Pearl Harbor", as quoted on their web page.

The goal of regime change remained their consistent position throughout the Iraq disarmament crisis. They followed that up with a letter to Republican members of the U.S. Congress Newt Gingrich and Trent Lott.

Members include Dick Cheney, Jeb Bush, Steve Forbes, Zalmay Khalilzad, I. Lewis Libby, Paul Wolfowitz, and Donald Rumsfeld