• Once the Iraqi invasion has been brought to a halt, begin an offensive air campaign whose aim is to throw the invading army out of Saudi Arabia and Kuwait: Though CENTCOM tasking in August was to focus on the defense of Saudi Arabia, nonetheless, no one could ignore the event that had started the crisis, the invasion of Kuwait. Thus, initial plans had to be made for attacks against key targets in Iraq—oil refineries, power-generation plants, major rail yards, large factories, interstate highways, bridges, and the like. The idea was to link the destruction of these targets essential to Iraq with a coherent strategy designed to gain a political objective, such as the removal of the Iraqis from Kuwait. In point of fact, Horner and Schwarzkopf had recently come from the Internal Look exercise in Florida, where their air planners had been selecting targets throughout Iraq in response to the exercise scenario. Most of the target materials used during the war had already been ordered from intelligence sources the previous spring (primarily the DIA) as part of the preparations for Internal Look.

By the time the 5:00 P.M. conference with the CINC had arrived, Horner was ready to step in, if necessary, and provide Schwarzkopf with the basics he’d need to take to Camp David. He grabbed his notes and headed down to the CINC’s conference room to listen to the briefing proposed for the CINC by the J-3.

The small conference room was small and crowded, and the atmosphere was tense. The CINC was tired, the process of preparing the presidential briefing had not gone smoothly, and now time was running out. Fortunately, no one was allowed to smoke. Schwarzkopf ’s predecessor, Marine General George Crist, and many of his staff had been chain-smokers; CENTCOM meetings in those days had been agony to nonsmokers.

The meeting started with a short update on the situation in Kuwait. It turned out that when the crisis had broken out in July, General Schwarzkopf had had a man in a hotel across the street from the American Embassy in Kuwait City. His name was John F. Feeley, and he was a major on the CENTCOM Intelligence staff. Feeley had been sent to Kuwait with a briefcase full of top-secret photos to show the Kuwaiti leaders and had been caught there during the invasion. Now he was providing direct eyeball updates via a man-portable satellite phone. Horner didn’t know this man, but he imagined he was operating at a high pitch of excitement, perched as he was in the middle of the Iraqi Army as they rounded up elements of the Kuwaiti Army and foreign visitors. The CINC was obviously pleased that he’d inserted a pair of eyes in the enemy camp. Horner wondered if the “pair of eyes” shared the CINC’s joy.