The CHECKMATE team worked hard on their plan, fine-tuning it with every computer model at their disposal. And through their excellent contacts at the various intelligence agencies around Washington, D.C., they were able to assemble a much larger and more refined target list than was initially in the field in Saudi Arabia (probably their most useful offering to Chuck Horner and his own planners). They also called in representatives of the other services to get their ideas and comments, all of which made valuable inputs to the plan. In particular, the U.S. Navy’s SPEAR team, which had done first-class analytical work in examining KARI as a system, made valuable contributions to the SEAD portion of the plan (around which so much else depended). The SPEAR work gave planners a road map as to where and when to stick the knife into KARI (eventually giving rise to what became known as Puba’s Party, which knocked out Iraq’s air defenses on the first night of the war).

By the time it was done, the CHECKMATE campaign plan, called INSTANT THUNDER (with reference to the failed, gradualist, Vietnam War ROLLING THUNDER air campaign), ran to over two hundred pages. Given the time constraints levied on the CHECKMATE team, it was a dazzling effort. Now it was time to deliver the product to the customer, and that meant briefing it to senior leaders.

Warden flew twice to MacDill AFB to brief INSTANT THUNDER to Schwarzkopf, and both briefings were well received by the CINC. Warden’s offensively oriented thinking (he liked to compare his plan, for Schwarzkopf’s benefit, to the Schlieffen Plan and to Inchon) fit exactly into General Schwarzkopf ’s need to define an offensive strategy to free Kuwait. It also provided for options to respond to any Iraqi atrocity perpetrated against Western hostages then held in Iraq, or trapped in Western embassies in Kuwait City.43

One aspect of the campaign plan did bother Schwarzkopf. He found not nearly enough emphasis on reducing Iraqi ground forces, particularly the heavy armored units of the Republican Guards. By way of advice, the CINC mentioned this lack to Warden. It was advice Warden would later regret not taking.

After Schwarzkopf, Warden briefed Colin Powell, who also voiced his support for the INSTANT THUNDER plan. Now it was time to brief the CENTAF staff and Chuck Horner.

On August 19, a CHECKMATE team arrived in Riyadh and initially briefed Tom Olsen and the CENTAF staff. The team was headed personally by Colonel Warden, and with him were three of his key lieutenant colonels: Dave Deptula, Bernard Harvey, and Ronnie Stanfill. (Horner had known Deptula at Tyndall AFB, Florida, and thought very highly of him, both as an officer and as a fighter pilot.)

At the time of Warden’s arrival, Chuck Horner needed a chief planner for the air campaign; and on paper, John Warden was the perfect man for the job, with every intellectual skill needed to craft a plan that could be executed by Horner’s air forces, and which would drive the Iraqi armed forces to the edge of disaster.