Two weeks after the first US forces arrived in Baghdad, the country's new ruler, retired US general Jay Garner, finally showed up in the capital yesterday, declaring April 21st "a great day for Iraq and a great day for me personally", writes Lara Marlowe, from Baghdad.
But for millions of Iraqis who have suffered through weeks of bombing, looting and anarchy, the "Coalition Provisional Authority" was a long time coming.
Even as Gen Garner visited a hospital devastated by US forces and a power plant shut down by bomb damage, residents of the capital wondered how "provisional" his rule will be, and what kind of "authority" it will exercise.
Gen Garner built his reputation as an organiser on Operation Provide Comfort, the 1991 rescue operation for Iraqi Kurds who heeded the call of George Bush snr to rise up against Saddam Hussein. That humanitarian mission was largely successful.
His other achievement was overseeing the successor to the Patriot missile system, the joint US-Israeli "Arrow" programme.
His friendship with Israel has endeared him to the US Defence Secretary and others in the pro-Israel Bush administration.
When asked yesterday if he was to be Iraq's new military governor, Gen Garner demurred. "No, no, the new governor of Iraq will be an Iraqi. I'm the facilitator of the coalition in order to establish a new environment in which the Iraqis will be able to organise themselves, to install a new government, to reconstruct Iraq with our help, to establish a democracy."
Gen Garner said he wanted "to see things up and running in three to six months".
Yesterday's "advance party" of 19 US civil administrators is to swell to 450 within a week, and will spread across the country once Baghdad is under control.
A more specific timetable for Washington's do-it-yourself Iraqi democracy kit was provided by a British junior minister to the BBC: establishment of an Office for Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance within three months.
An Interim Iraqi Authority will then take over, until a Constitutional Conference can be held, preparing the way for elections.
Hundreds of thousands of Shia Muslim pilgrims headed for the holy city of Karbala yesterday, venting anger over the US occupation of Iraq; their frustration echoed in Baghdad, where thousands protested at the reported arrest of a prominent mullah.
Conor O'Clery adds: The chief UN weapons inspector, Dr Hans Blix, is to brief the Security Council today on prospects of a return to Iraq of the inspection team withdrawn from Baghdad before the US-led invasion.
Most of the council, including Britain, the closest US ally, support the return of weapons inspectors to authenticate any finds of banned weapons, but the US has sent its own teams to search for weapons of mass destruction.