One change Horner added to the early briefing was to have a chart made that showed the fight taking place in phases. By phases he meant that various objectives would be emphasized at various times—that is to say, the four phases did not actually indicate separate actions, one beginning as the last ended, but levels of focus. They offered a way to communicate airman talk to non-airmen, and they were basically simple, the first phase being to gain control of the air, and the last to prepare the battlefield and support the land attack.

So:

• PHASE I—STRATEGIC AIR CAMPAIGN. To gain control of the air and hit the Iraqi leadership, NBC, Scuds, and electric and oil infrastructure. The idea was to deny Saddam supplies but not necessarily to destroy his heavy industry. That is, power and fuel would be attacked, but in such a way that facilities could be reconstituted relatively easily after the war—e.g., grids would be hit instead of generators.

• PHASE II—AIR SUPERIORITY IN THE KTO. This idea came from General Schwarzkopf, who was thinking like an army general, in terms of land area and lines on maps. Even though this phase was redundant (gaining control of the air would happen simultaneously over Iraq and over Kuwait), Horner didn’t fight him on it. It gave him buy-in to the plan (as in, “I thought of that”), so why argue with him?

• PHASE III—PREPARATION OF THE BATTLEFIELD. This included isolating the battlefield, killing tanks and artillery, and destroying morale. It was at this point that Horner and Glosson introduced into the plan the important (and later well-known) goal of destroying 50 percent of Iraqi tanks, APCs (armored personnel carriers), and artillery.

According to Army doctrine, when a land unit’s effectiveness has been reduced to 50 percent or less, then it is no longer combat-useful. At the end of the planned air campaign, the Iraqi Army would be reduced by 50 percent. Hence, in essence, when the air effort was over, the war would be over, and little would remain to be done save collecting prisoners.

To understand this goal, it is important to remember that Norman Schwarzkopf genuinely loved his troops. Their safety and ultimate survival was one of his chief passions. Thus, any air plan that ignored the troops on the ground would be dead if presented to the CINC. It is also important to understand that Schwarzkopf did not insist on a ground campaign. On the contrary, he would have been delighted if the Iraqis had surrendered before his land forces went into battle. All the same, he knew there was a 95 percent chance of land war, and he wanted to make sure air operations were conducted to maximize the survival of the men and women of his land forces. Thus, the air plan talked about “preparation of the battlefield” and attriting “50 percent” of the Iraqi armor and artillery.