As soon as I wander in, Dave Deptula, Buster Glosson, or Tony Tolin goes to the wall where a map of Iraq is stuck with colored pins indicating various category targets (blue might represent air defense; red, leadership; orange, NBC facilities; and green, Scud-related targets), and we discuss what needs to be done two days from now. (Sometimes when I am busy with a crisis, they do this without me; sometimes Buster comes down to the TACC and kneels beside my chair, and we go over what he is thinking.)

After we discuss the so-called strategic targets I move to the next room, where Bill Welch and Sam Baptiste will be dealing with long lists of targets nominated by our land force brethren. Fred Franks’s VIIth Corps worked this list hard, both because they believed it was their duty and responsibility and because they believed air would be wasted going after targets that didn’t matter to the real war if they didn’t. XVIIIth’s list was much shorter. Gary Luck had fewer Iraqis in front of him, and he would not get into the heavy stuff until his divisions had wheeled to the right along the rivers and attacked toward Basra. I also believed that he figured we knew how to do what was best and if he needed help he could count on us. In fact, I never got the impression he felt he was going to need any significant help. Walt Boomer’s list was not as short as Luck’s but much shorter than Fred’s, perhaps because he figured he had his own Marine Air Force at his fingertips if he needed it. That was true in some ways, because the Harriers were thought of as CAS aircraft and really couldn’t go very deep, due to range and vulnerability considerations. On top of that, the Marines will be loyal to one another in ways the Army and Air Force may not. (Neither Walt nor I have this attitude, but it may have influenced his iron majors and kept them from submitting long lists of targets in order to make sure they got their fair share of airpower, whatever that is or was.) The Northern Area and Eastern Area lists were submitted by Colonel Ayed al-Jeaid, the RSAF representative working in the C31C at MODA.