For once the loud explosions piercing the Baghdad night are the sounds of celebration rather than violence and bloodshed, as a new national holiday is announced to mark US troops leaving Iraq's towns and cities.
The day is a landmark in Iraq's emergence from its US domination, and will be a relief for US troops making their last patrols in built-up areas where thousands have been killed since 2003.
Security was tight on Monday night as people came out onto the streets to mark the occasion, and Iraqi security forces did the job alone without US military help.
A raucous celebration took place in Ramadi, capital of the mainly Sunni Muslim Anbar province, once a centre of the anti-US insurgency but now one of the most stable areas in the whole of Iraq.
The handover to Iraqi forces filled many citizens with pride, but also trepidation that government forces are not ready to take full control and that violence will rise.
US commander in Baghdad Daniel Bolger handed his Iraqi counterpart, Gen Abud Qambar, a symbolic key to the old Defence Ministry, the last of 86 positions to be vacated by the US military in the Iraqi capital.
Iraqi Army soldiers paraded in front of the Defence Ministry in Baghdad. From now on it is hoped they will be able to unite a country which has teetered on the brink of civil war during recent years.
In Baghdad's Zawra Park a scene that could hardly have been imagined during the dark days of 2006-07. Thousands gathered to hear Iraqi singers like Salah Hassan, Kassem Sultan and Abed Falek perform in public in their homeland for the first time in years.
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