Major John Altman, intelligence officer with the First Brigade of the army's 3rd Infantry Division (3ID), said the US-led offensive had reduced the much vaunted Republican Guard to just three brigades and a battalion.

Only the armored Hammurabi Division remains intact to any significant degree, with two brigades operating, Altman told AFP. For the others, he gave this breakdown.

-- Medina Division (armored): destroyed by the 3ID

-- Baghdad Division: destroyed by US marines

-- Nebachadnezzar Division: most of its destroyed

-- Adnan Division: largely destroyed by the 3ID, one brigade left

-- Al Nida Division (armored): mostly destroyed by the 3ID, but a composite battalion remains

Iraq's Republican Guard was trumpeted as an elite squad composed of the best-trained and most highly-motivated men in Saddam's army fighting with the most modern weapons such as T-72 tanks.

The Guard had a total fighting force of some 60,000 men and was once made up of eight divisions. Two divisions were scrapped after the 1991 Gulf War that saw Iraqi forces chased from Kuwait by a US-led coalition.

US officials also said the current 18-day-old offensive to oust Saddam had destroyed the Iraqi army's communications systems and left it depending in Baghdad on motorcycle and bicycle couriers.

"Their military communications are virtally non-existent," an official of the US Central Command said at its war headquarters in Qatar.

SPACE.WIRE