Maybe there's another marine Major Murphy running around the Sunni Triangle, but I'll bet you anything it's Cinncinatus

September 09, 2005

Corps: Reports of Qaim
capture are false

By John Hoellwarth
Times staff writer

Published reports that al-Qaida forces have taken over the Iraqi city of Qaim are false, a Marine official in Iraq said on Sept. 9.

Witnesses and residents in Qaim, as well as people living in the surrounding villages, said Abu Musab Zarqawi’s al-Qaida forces brazenly took control of the city, according to a Sept. 5 Washington Post report.

The report cites witnesses as saying al-Qaida forces had taken to the streets there, prominently displaying Zarqawi’s black banner from the rooftops and posting a new sign at the city’s entrance that reads, “Welcome to the Islamic Republic of Qaim.”

Other statements posted in the city’s mosques describe the “Islamic Republic of Qaim” as having been “liberated from the occupation,” according to the report.

Numerous Internet news sources reported that the city has been placed under a system of strict Islamic justice known as Shariat’s Law. They said sources within the city reported the burning of a movie theater, CD store and beauty parlor, and said a woman’s bullet-riddled body was left in the street, bearing a sign that read: “A prostitute who was punished.”

The city of Qaim — which sits only two miles from the Syrian border, at which U.S. forces have long fought to stem the flow of foreign fighters into Iraq — was the target of air strikes aimed at disrupting the insurgency there during the final five days of August, according to a 2nd Marine Division release.

The division’s spokesman, Capt. Jeff Pool, told the Post he had no knowledge of increased enemy activity in Qaim, and the Post quoted a military spokesman in Baghdad who promised to “look into the reports.”

But Maj. Neil Murphy, a spokesman for II Marine Expeditionary Force, told Marine Corps Times that reports detailing an all-out al-Qaida takeover in Qaim were a “crock of crap.”

“Sure, anyone can hang up a poster. That does not mean anything,” Murphy wrote in an e-mail response to questions. “We have a battalion there. [The insurgents] are continually moving to try and find safety, but we are rooting them out and we’ll root them out of Qaim, too.”

www.marinecorpstimes.com/story.php?f=1-292925-1093012.php

OOH RAH brother Cinncinatus!

It sure sounds like something he'd say...

  A thing of beauty !

A "crock of crap"??  Methinks someone edited that quote down to a PG rating<G>.

I am pretty sure  that is a different Maj Murphy.  Since a Maj Neil Murphy went to TBS with me.

Quoted: I am pretty sure  that is a different Maj Murphy.  Since a Maj Neil Murphy went to TBS with me.

Murphy's not exactly an uncommon name.  But the Cinncinatus here is a major, his last name's Murphy, he's a marine, and he's deployed in the Sunni Triangle at the moment.  I just figured it was probably him.

Dont know Major Murphy/Cinncinatus's first name

My impression of the insurgents movement patterns reminds me of migratory workers. They feel the heat start to comedown and they split to a new village. They start to move about a day before the actual operations take place.

Seems like you could gain a lot of good intel by just running these guys all over.

If you implanted a couple of gps trackers in a few active people, you would have their ratlines figured out in a couple of months.

Once you’ve got a good line on members/movement/resources, A large hammer and anvil op could gut northern insurgency but good


Why haven’t we buried every foreign jihadi in Iraq by now?

Quoted: I am pretty sure  that is a different Maj Murphy.  Since a Maj Neil Murphy went to TBS with me.

A Major went through TBS, or he instructed you? Last time I checked TBS was to teach new 2nd LT's the ropes.

No he went to TBS with me when I was a Lt, many years ago.  Very few Majors are instructors there, they are Company COs and section heads at the IG.

Quoted: Why haven’t we buried every foreign jihadi in Iraq by now?

They are and more keep coming over via Syria and Iran. What the US Military should do is invade Syria and Iran to relieve the pressure on the Iraqis and put pressure on the source of the bad guys.

Once we've got Syria and Iran shaken up and Iraq right in the middle, then we can send and armored thrust into Saudi Arabia and go for the endgame. What are the Saudis going to do? They buy their weapons from us.

“crock of crap”

... That's him alright!

Even if it isn't Cincinnatus, that is good news.

I hope is him for some reason.