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NEW YORK - If there's one thing everyone will remember from the closing days of Operating Iraqi Freedom, there's a good chance it will be a deck of cards.
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Some 200 decks of cards featuring Iraq's most wanted on the playing faces were printed by the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency and distributed to troops at Iraqi border crossings. A deck was shown on TV screens around the world during an April 11 CENTCOM briefing in Qatar by Brig. Gen. Vincent Brooks, and news reports on every capture of a member of the former Iraqi government has included mention of that person's place in the deck.

The decks immediately became fodder for the late-night talk show hosts. Conan O'Brien quipped: "The U.S. Military has been handing out decks of cards with pictures of the most wanted leaders of Saddam Husseins' regime. Apparently, three Tariq Aziz cards will get you a Pokemon."

Naturally it wasn't long before Internet vendors jumped into the act, selling copies of the deck to those wanting war mementos. The most successful of the bunch is a Web startup called GreatUSAflags.com. Launched on April 10 as a subsidiary of Lionstone International, a Chicago-based wine importer and distributor, the company had planned to sell patriotic pins and stickers online.

When the deck started getting international media attention, the site's founder Louis Amoroso contacted Liberty Playing Cards, a playing-card publisher, with the intention of selling 500 decks per day, says Ken Gaebler, a spokesman for GreatUSAflags.com.

Copyright © 2003. Forbes.