As they say, there are no coincidences in politics. Well, ...

Strange thing about 911 is that members of the Bush administration knew that they needed an event to unify Americans, like Pearl Harbor. And they said as much in the Project for the New American Century's (PNAC) report, "Rebuilding America's Defenses":

"A transformation strategy that solely pursued capabilities for projecting force from the United States, for example, and sacrificed forward basing and presence, would be at odds with larger American policy goals and would trouble American allies.

Further, the process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event – like a new Pearl Harbor."

http://www.newamericancentury.org/RebuildingAmericasDefenses.pdf

pp. 62-63

Who comprises the Project for a New American Century (PNAC)? Some familiar names, now in the Bush administration:

Elliott Abrams - National Security Council, Special Asst. to Bush

Gary Bauer - ties to fundamentalist/evangelical groups, runs Campaign for Working Families

William J. Bennett - Radio host, Morning in America

Jeb Bush - FL gov

Dick Cheney - VP, unable to differentiate between man & quail

Eliot A. Cohen - influential neoconservative academic, Johns Hopkins

Midge Decter - neoconservative biographer of Donald Rumsfeld

Paula Dobriansky - Undersecretary of State for Global Affairs

Steve Forbes - Forbes editor

Aaron Friedberg - Kissinger chair scholar on 9 month appointment since 9/2001

Francis Fukuyama - political economist

Frank Gaffney - president of the Center for Security Policy and a columnist for The Washington Times

Fred C. Ikle - Commissioner, Report of the National Commission on Terrorism, also known as the Bremer Commission

Donald Kagan - Yale historian, converted from liberal Dem to staunch neoconservative

Zalmay Khalilzad - Ambassador to Iraq

I. Lewis Libby - former chief of staff to VP, now indicted by grand jury

Norman Podhoretz - Midge Decter's son, senior fellow at Hudson Institute, member of Council on Foreign Relations

Dan Quayle - 44th VP, controversial potato(e) speller

Peter W. Rodman - United States Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs

Stephen P. Rosen - Was a professor at the US Naval War College, and Director of Political-Military Affairs at the National Security Council under Ronald Reagan

Henry S. Rowen - Fellow at the Hoover Institution, member of the Department of Defense's Defense Policy Board

Donald Rumsfeld - Secretary of Defense

Vin Weber - Former US Representative from Minnesota, Co-Founder of Empower America, campaign adviser to GWB

George Weigel - Sr. Fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Council, member Council on Foreign Relations

Paul Wolfowitz - neoconservative architect of the "Bush Doctrine"

http://www.newamericancentury.org/statementofprinciples.htm