The dramatic seizure of Saddam International Airport by US forces has been mirrored by reports of the decisive defeat of the Baghdad and Nida Divisions of the Iraqi Republican Guard.
Charged with the defence of Baghdad, these elite units were expected to fight to the death and to bitterly contest the southern suburbs of the Iraqi capital.
Instead, if unconfirmed reports are to be believed, they have surrendered in large numbers, having collapsed after the briefest of firefights. The defenders of Saddam International Airport would also appear to have capitulated without any major counterattack or retaliatory shelling.
In military terms, there would appear to be an eerie silence around Baghdad.
As I write, darkness is falling on the Iraqi capital. For Iraqi commanders, this darkness would provide the perfect cover for a major offensive aimed at retaking the airport. Currently held by relatively small numbers of US troops, the recapture of Saddam's eponymously named airport would be a major strategic and propagandic victory for the Iraqi military.
Without reinforcements and not yet having fully secured the airport's perimeter, US troops would be particularly vulnerable to such a counterattack. The absence of such a move on the part of the Iraqis would inevitably lead to speculation as to the fighting effectiveness of their forces.
On Thursday Centcom's Deputy Operations Director, Brig Gen Vincent Brooks made a cryptic statement to the effect that Saddam had lost command and control of his fighting forces.
Such an assertion would imply that the political and military leadership of Saddam's regime had come asunder under the increasing "compression" being applied by coalition forces. The creation of such a power vacuum has been one of the primary objectives of the US military campaign in Iraq to date.
The philosophy underpinning current US military strategy has been to target the regime and its apparatus while limiting "collateral damage" among the civilian population.
If this strategy has succeeded, an intense phase of behind-the-scenes negotiations will currently be under way designed to facilitate surrender, occupation and regime change. Such a period would be accompanied by an air of uncertainty marked by unease and confusion among defenders and increasingly hysterical threats from those clinging to power.
Such a scenario, characteristic of a dictatorship in its death throes, would seem to describe the situation pertaining in Iraq at present.
The threat by Iraq's Minister for Information, Muhammad Sa'id al-Sahhaf, to engage in "non-conventional warfare" would appear to signal the intention of the regime to resort to guerrilla tactics and chemical and biological warfare for a suicidal last-ditch defence of Baghdad.
In the present circumstances, it is tempting to assume such rhetoric might herald the imminent collapse of Saddam's regime in Baghdad.
Centcom, however, will be considering another scenario. Consistent with the Soviet tactic of Maskirovka, the Iraqi military may have employed a sophisticated deception plan in order to draw allied forces into the city of Baghdad for a campaign of brutal urban warfare.
The Maskirovka strategy involves masking one's combat deployment and disposition and denying the enemy the opportunity to attack on favourable ground.
The Iraqis, former students of Soviet military doctrine, may have adopted this strategy in order to deny the US the battlefield of its choosing. This would explain the apparent "evaporation" of Iraqi resistance in the open and the sudden and suspected disappearance of large Iraqi formations into cities such as Basra and Baghdad.
This notion is reinforced by anecdotal accounts from US troops describing current combat operations as "sporadic" and descriptions of the enemy as a "will o' the wisp" on the battlefield.
If the Iraqis have employed a mixture of tactical withdrawals and battlefield feints designed to draw the allies into Baghdad, the proof will be found in fierce battles around the city centre in the coming days. Centcom will have made provision for such battles, and statements from US and British politicians since the conflict began have consistently warned of "difficult times ahead".
As the ground war in Iraq reaches its climax in Baghdad, the participants face two likely prospects. One would involve the implosion of the regime and an early surrender. The other would involve the explosion of violence associated with the street-by-street, hand-to-hand combat associated with urban warfare.
For all but a tiny minority of Iraqis, the former prospect is far preferable to the latter. Centcom will be hoping this tiny minority, Saddam and his inner circle, will fall victim to the war sooner rather than later.
Dr Tom Clonan is a retired Army officer with experience in the Middle East and former Yugoslavia. He is a fellow of the US-based Inter University Seminar on Armed Forces and Society. He currently lectures in the School of Media at DIT