In all of the hullabaloo about the President authorizing domestic spying sans warrants or judicial review, another story got suspiciously little play: US authorities in Iraq released “Dr. Germ” (Rihab Rashid Taha) and “Mrs. Anthrax” (Huda Salih Mahdi Ammash) from custody, along with six other high-profile Baathist figures.

And another 17 or so are scheduled for release soon.

Now let’s take the case of Dr. Ammash. Here was a woman touted as a high-ranking official in Saddam Hussein’s regime, with intimate knowledge of chemical weaponry. In our haste to demonize her a few years back, we not only slugged her with the Marvel-era handle “Mrs. Anthrax,” we made her the Five of Hearts in our deck of Most Wanted playing cards.

And when we caught her, Donald Rumsfeld trumpeted the arrest — it wasn’t like catching Hussein, or his sons, but it was a hand of cards well played.

So what does it mean when you have to start giving the cards back?

It begs the question: does anyone out there really believe that we are releasing “Mrs. Anthrax” — giving back the Five of Hearts — from a position of strength?

No, this is what’s called a “good-will gesture,” because the phrase “negotiating with terrorists” sounds so rough-edged. Tariq Aziz, the Eight of Spades, is said to be in the queue as well, and it’s clear that the Adminstration has quietly made a decision now to offer the insurgency goods they might be willing to accept.

But it’s funny how often the Administration’s seemingly inspired media ploys — Bush’s top-gun landing, the deck of most-wanted cards that almost every American newspaper ran with because it was colorful and made war seem amusing and risk-free — have come back to haunt it. Their metaphors defy their control.

Because if you make war a card game, then it matters who wins the cards — and who’s forced to give them back in the end.