The Command Post - Iraq - Did nightime raid net 5 of Diamonds?

May 15, 2003

Did nightime raid net 5 of Diamonds?

According to the BBC:

The US military says it has arrested another Iraqi on the United States' list of 55 "most wanted" former officials.

The man was picked up - along with dozens of other suspected supporters of Saddam Hussein - during a raid in a village near the northern Iraqi city of Tikrit, the US army said.

The former official has not been formally identified, but local residents have named him as Abd al-Baqi abd Karim al-Sadun, a Baath Party official who is number 22 on the list.

I believe that he is also the 5 of Diamonds on the Iraq deck. The Command Post item about the original raid is here.

Posted By Martin Devon at May 15, 2003 06:05 PM | TrackBack

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The Five of Diamonds is now number 40 on the list of 55. This morning Centcom totally reordered the official list of 55 to match the order implied by the deck of cards. Since Fives are the 10th-highest rank and diamonds the lowest suit on the CentCom list (I believe poker rules differ) he is now number 40. Oddly enough, the CentCom list does not include someone reported as captured two weeks ago, the Nine of Hearts, 41 on the old list, 23 on the new. How could that have happened? And their dates of capture are sometimes as much as five days _later_ than the news reports announcing the captures. The only thing I can figure is that some of these people may have negotiated their surrenders (or had their surrenders negotiated for them against their will) over a period of time, so they were reported as captured before they were actually in Coalition hands.

Posted by: Dr. Weevil at May 15, 2003 07:43 PM

Dr. Weevil,

If you look at the image that I posted on my site's version of this post, Abd al-Baqi abd Karim al-Sadun is indeed the Five of Diamonds. It does get confusing, but I went by the name. -- mmd

Posted by: Martin Devon at May 15, 2003 08:26 PM

I'm not disagreeing with his card ID, just pointing out that CentCom went and changed all the numbers on the list of 55, but NOT the ranks on the deck of 52. He's still the Five of Diamonds, but now he's number 40, not number 23. I was the correcting the linked BBC report, not your post here.

Just to confuse things, Fox News reports that the Two of Diamonds has been captured, and doesn't seem to mention the Five. Very confusing. Not to mention that your picture says he's BP chairman and militia commander of Diyala governate, while CentCom says Baghdad governate. I think the latter must be right: he's the highest-numbered (before and after renumbering) of the 15 BP chairmen, and I would expect that to be the Baghdad guy. All in all, tracking captures is way more complicated than it ought to be.

Posted by: Dr. Weevil at May 15, 2003 09:19 PM

Well since the article is from the BBC, it think we have as good of chance of finding out the truth from Tom Dasshole or Bagdad Bob.

Posted by: Jeff B at May 16, 2003 09:42 AM

Well, I take that back.....we all know Tom Dasshole 'isn't playin' with a full deck'.

Posted by: Jeff B at May 16, 2003 09:43 AM

Just to confuse things, the official CentCom list now has the Two of Diamonds listed as captured May 15th, but the Five of Diamonds still at large. Sounds like first reports were inaccurate, though it's difficult to be sure. Guess we'll have to wait and see if they add the Five any time soon.

Posted by: Dr. Weevil at May 16, 2003 05:22 PM