And "Wag The Dog"

And don't forget that what the 911 Commission report said:

1. The 9/11 Commission Report evaluated such so-called "Wag the Dog" theories (the strikes being motivated to deflect attention from domestic, political troubles), and found no reason to believe them, nor disbelieve the testimony and assertions of former President Clinton, former Vice President Gore, CIA Chief Tenet, nor former security advisors Berger and Clarke that the destruction of Al Shifa was still, as of 2004, a justifible national security target.
2. The U.S. Justice Department,under President George W. Bush, produced an alleged al-Qaeda defector as a witness on February 13, 2001, in its ongoing case against Osama Bin Laden.The witness, Jamal Ahmad al-Fadl, testified that Al Qaeda operatives he was involved with had been engaged in manufacturing chemical weapons in Khartoum, Sudan, around 1993 or 1994

And what the GOP was saying in 1998 (follow link for much more corrobative evidence)