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Nobody ever called Tariq Aziz a card. For a long time, he was the public face of Iraq - a serious, elegant diplomat, fluent in English and fond of cigars.
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Then the Defense Department made the Iraqi deputy prime minister a lowly eight-of-spades in its deck of cards showcasing the 52 most-wanted members of the fallen regime.

Aziz's descent continued Thursday when the once-trusted adviser to Saddam "Ace-of-Spades" Hussein turned himself in.

Score another one for the Deck of Death.

Already the cards are so embedded in popular culture that anchors give the rank and suit of the captured in news reports.

Only in America, home of the instant collectible, could a government gimmick morph into a full-fledged craze in the space of two weeks.

The pack of villains is the got-to-have-it souvenir of the Iraq war.

GreatUSAflags.com of Lake Forest, Ill., says it has sold 700,000 decks at $5.95 each. Some companies charge $19.95. Some report shipping delays of up to two weeks.

There were 4,225 listings for the cards on eBay Friday, many described as "original" or "authentic" but probably neither.

The game began April 11, when that telegenic talker, Brig. Gen. Vincent Brooks, held up a set of cards during a Central Command briefing. The Defense Intelligence Agency printed 200 decks for the troops on its own presses, Brooks said.

At home in front of their TV sets, viewers who didn't know poker from pinochle concluded their lives would be meaningless without the cards.

Did the limited supply spark the demand? Or was it the same primeval yearning for wacky commemoratives that inspires tourists to purchase spoon rests decorated with the map of Utah? Whatever it was, it drove numerous citizens to try to order cards from the Pentagon.

The Defense Department, having no desire to go into the souvenir business, instead released its playing-card computer files for free downloading so folks could make their own.

GreatUSAflags.com did so right away. It's the exclusive marketer for United States Playing Card Co. of Cincinnati, which owns the trademark on the red-and-yellow Hoyle Jokers that the Pentagon slipped, without permission, into its original 200 decks.

The company is giving Defense a pass for swiping its jokers, saying the military assumed they were in the public domain.

But, this being America, and with so much money changing hands, the firm has sent letters to dozens of card-peddling companies saying the jokers are protected "intellectual property."

Speaking of jokers, 12 members of Saddam's inner circle have been cut from the official deck, including two of his half-brothers (the five-of-clubs and five-of-spades).

"They're collapsing like a house of cards," Army Lt. Col. Tom Kurasiewicz joked Wednesday, announcing that the queen-of-diamonds, or air-defense commander, and six- and seven-of-hearts - the trade minister and head of military intelligence - were in hand.

For those keeping score, the four-of-clubs, a senior Baath Party official, was turned in by Kurds. The four-of-hearts higher-education minister and eight-of-diamonds finance minister were taken by U.S. soldiers.

The seven-of-diamonds, a top scientific adviser, folded early. The nine-of-clubs and queen-of-spades - Saddam's son-in-law and a regional commander - fell Monday.

Meanwhile, GreatUSA's owner, Louis Amoroso, says he's confident his sales will surpass a million decks.

He's thinking of donating the millionth to the Smithsonian as a historical artifact. That's right - from nonexistent to historical in a matter of weeks.

Copyright © 2003. The Philadelphia Inquirer.