Bush ‘Calm’ as War Clock Ticks Down : White House: Weeks of planning pays off. President joins nation in watching breaking news on television.

For months he had planned for it, for weeks anticipated it, and for the final hours had awaited word of success.

And now, in a small study just off the White House Oval Office, as the hour neared 7 p.m. in Washington, President Bush--”calm” and “expectant” in the words of his spokesman--watched, just as millions of other Americans did, as television relayed word that the most massive military assault since D-Day had begun.

With national security adviser Brent Scowcroft, Chief of Staff John H. Sununu and Vice President Dan Quayle on hand, Bush anxiously flipped channels, watching first CNN, then ABC as correspondents in Baghdad described the sounds of multiple explosions and the sight of tracer bullets lighting the night sky.

As the hour arrived, ABC correspondent Gary Shephard announced that he could see from his hotel room in Baghdad the first American shells destroying an Iraqi communications tower. Bush, his blue suit jacket discarded, turned to the men gathered around him.

“Just the way it was scheduled,” he said.

Then, turning to his press secretary, Marlin Fitzwater, who had entered the room only minutes earlier, Bush directed him officially to notify the nation that “the liberation of Kuwait has begun.”

Earlier, Bush had dispatched his deputy national security adviser, Robert Gates, to Capitol Hill, to hand-deliver a written notice of the impending war to the senior leadership of Congress. And the President had called four congressional leaders--Senate Majority Leader George J. Mitchell (D-Me.) and Minority Leader Bob Dole (R-Kan.), and House Speaker Thomas S. Foley (D-Wash.) and Minority Leader Robert H. Michel (R-Ill.)--to personally tell them of his decision.

White House operators had located Foley at Brooks Brothers men’s store, where he was buying shirts, and had relayed the message asking that the Speaker call the President from a secure phone.

Formally, the decision to launch Operation Desert Storm at 12:50 a.m. Thursday morning Middle Eastern time (1:50 p.m. Wednesday PST)--taking advantage of the first night after the deadline for Iraq’s withdrawal from Kuwait--came only hours earlier, when Bush gave the final go-ahead. In practice, however, the operation was long-planned, its roots extending back five-and-a-half months, to the earliest days after Iraq’s Aug. 2 invasion of Kuwait.

For more than three weeks, since he retreated to his Camp David weekend home at Christmas, the President had been working on drafts of the speech he would read to the nation explaining his decision. And every Sunday night, as he returned from his weekends at the presidential hideaway, the President would meet with top aides to further refine the precise military plan that was carried out Wednesday evening.

Tuesday morning, with the U.N. deadline less than 12 hours away, Bush had gathered in the Oval Office with his advisers for a final discussion of the plan. At the close of the meeting, seated in front of the office fireplace in an armchair, he signed a final National Security Directive authorizing the war to begin. Shortly afterward, the announcement Fitzwater was to read the next day was drafted.

From that point on, only a sudden and massive withdrawal by Iraq, or weather so bad that planes would not have been able to fly safely, could have stayed the attack, officials said.

Wednesday, with all preparations set and Saddam Hussein still refusing to budge, Bush issued the final authorization and prepared to notify foreign leaders and members of Congress.

Outwardly, the President’s day had a deceptively normal appearance. Bush went through a round of routine meetings, appearing, for example, at a briefing with Education Secretary-designate Lamar Alexander.

But behind the scenes, final steps toward war were taken.

Early in the morning, Saudi Ambassador Bandar bin Sultan met in the elegant State Department office of Secretary of State James A. Baker III and delivered a message from his uncle, King Fahd: “We are on board.”

Baker then travelled to the White House, meeting Defense Secretary Dick Cheney and Scowcroft for breakfast. While Cheney returned to the Pentagon to handle final military preparations, Scowcroft and Baker joined Bush for his standard morning national security and intelligence briefings.

Bush also authorized Fitzwater to release during his daily briefing for news reporters a final warning for journalists and other Americans in Baghdad to leave.

Over several days, the spokesman had met with executives of U.S. television networks, conveying warnings but concealing any hint of the timing of an attack, responding to what he described as repeated expressions of concern by Bush at seeing American reporters still stationed in a city the President knew he was about to bombard.

As Fitzwater delivered his warning to reporters, Bush joined Baker, the President’s long-time friend from Texas and his most senior adviser, for a brief stroll on the colonnade that borders the Rose Garden.

With no aides present, the two men ate lunch in the White House residence. Baker then departed for the State Department a few blocks away and began scheduling appointments with ambassadors of key partners in the anti-Iraq coalition.

Late in the afternoon, the President once again returned to his residential quarters to change clothes and relax. He spoke with his wife and prepared to greet an overnight guest, the Rev. Billy Graham.

Finally, shortly after 5 p.m., as planes began taking off from airfields in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere in the Middle East, Bush made the short trip down an elevator to the ground floor of the executive mansion and strolled back over to the Oval Office, where he turned on the television set in his study and began to call congressional and world leaders to deliver the message:

War had begun.

Staff Writers William J. Eaton and Geraldine Baum contributed to this report.