Elite Iraqi Guard Heads Toward Marines

[Steven]

We are going to get squeezed from the North and the South.... If the
weather prevents air support, it is going to be horrendous.  Of course,
if US air support comes in, it will be devastating for the Iraqi's.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-2511079,00.html

A large contingent of Iraq's elite Republican Guard
headed south Wednesday in a convoy of at least
1,000 vehicles toward U.S. Marines in central Iraq
- an area that already has seen the heaviest
fighting of the war. 

In Baghdad, Iraqi officials said two cruise missiles
hit a residential area, killing 12. 

Intelligence officers with the 1st Marine
Expeditionary Force said the Republican Guard
units were headed from Baghdad on a route that
avoids advancing U.S. Army forces and leads them
directly to the Marines who have been fighting in
recent days around An Nasiriyah. 

The advance appeared to signal that the
Republican Guard, Saddam Hussein's best trained
and most loyal force, was still prepared to go on
the offensive despite several days of allied air
strikes and missile attacks on its positions.