It is an important marker. But so, too, are the smaller, slower transformations taking place in neighborhoods of Baghdad, the soil where the seeds of possibility are starting to take root as a result of increased security.
"When we meet and talk, we speak about how we must hold together in the future, and if we don't the future wont be so good," said Thayia Aziz Kudam, a muhalla (neighborhood) leader in the East Rashid area of southeastern Baghdad. "All together. We must all help together to make the security for this area. Gangs, militias, al-Qaida: All of us, we want them to go away. We don't want them."
Kudam's neighborhood was known from 2006 until this autumn for sectarian violence and al-Qaida's campaign of terror. It's a long-standing mixed community, with Sunni Muslims in the majority but with Shiites and Christians as well.
"Welcome back," a banner in the neighborhood reads. "We are all one," says another.
The banners are a display of fact and hope. Some who fled earlier intimidation and bloodshed are returning, and the people of East Rashid hope more will do so. Their hope and growing confidence is based on the establishment of security checkpoints in the area by the Iraqi National Police and Iraqi Security Volunteers – an armed, neighborhood watch-type organization being established around the capital.
Also helping breed confidence are the frequent patrols by U.S. and Iraqi military forces. The Americans, members of the 2nd Battalion, 2nd Cavalry Stryker Regiment, are based nearby in an abandoned Chaldean Catholic seminary in a combat operations post dubbed Blackfoot. The seminarians fled in 2006 after al-Qaida not only threatened their lives but punctuated that threat by beheading a priest.
In September and October of this year the Americans surged to Baghdad from a base in Germany and fought tooth and nail against various gunmen to clean up the area. Door-to-door street battles, snipings, mortaring, and IED (improvised explosive devices) explosions filled the days and rent the nights.
"When we first got here, there were memorial services [for U.S. soldiers killed] almost every day," said Sgt. Jim Tripp, who belongs to a psychological operations unit attached to the Stryker group.
When the dust finally cleared, al-Qaida in Iraq and other extremist and insurgent groups were, in the main, pushed out.
Kudam's muhalla is the brightest spot in East Rashid. Others aren't so bright.
Many neighborhoods closest to 60th Street, a main thoroughfare bordering the East Rashid area, remain deserted. The street, once a main shopping area, was the prime killing zone for militias and al-Qaida in their battles with each other for supremacy of the area.
Along 60th Street, which extends north to south, only an occasional pedestrian is seen hurrying across its broad expanse. Relative safety for them from possible sniper remnants to the west of the street is measured in hurried, anxious yards.
Deserted streets back off from 60th Street, as empty as the battle-scared houses that line them. There are only heaps of rubble and garbage, pools of sewage, and scavenging dogs. The deeper you go into East Rashid, where U.S. forces give numeric designations for the neighborhoods and communities, the more people are on the streets, walking more calmly, shopping at markets that serve food and sell everything from vegetables to small electronics.
"It's better, now," said 12-year-old Omar Muhammad Salem, "It's quieter now, not much shooting anymore."
Salem has lived in the Hader area of East Rasheed, a block off 60th Street for a year. His family stayed despite the threats, violence, and intimidation from al-Qaida, which ran roughshod over it. They had no choice. They were pushed out of another area in southern Baghdad by fighting between the Iraqi army and insurgents and a house in Hader abandoned by a relative was their only option.
The youth is just one of the estimated 2 million people displaced in Iraq.
Salem was at a corner a block in from 60th Street when he made the comment. He was standing outside a small shop that sold snacks. It was one of just a half-dozen shops open on that end of the long street – next to a police checkpoint.
The hope of those who returned were for more police checkpoints along the road to encourage others to return and reopen their businesses along what was once a major shopping area.
Much of that hope depends on cooperation between the Sunni and Shiite sectors of East Rashid. Their leaders meet regularly with national and local police and the Iraqi army to discuss security needs and to resolve friction.
"They were fighting each other for years," said an Iraqi member of the U.S. Army who wanted to remain anonymous. "Trust and cooperation is going to be very slow. It won't happen overnight."
That divide was subtly apparent at a recent security meeting in East Rashid attended by the national police, local police, the Iraqi army, an Iraqi Security Volunteer representative, and U.S. military officials. As they took seats along a C-shaped table, all the Sunnis sat on one side and all the Shiites on the other, barely looking at each other.
"I ask us please: Don't use bullets as a solution, don't put the tribes between a solution," a high ranking national police official said at the start of discussions. "We're all one people. All of us are responsible to God for the blood of the innocent people."
Two hours later, both groups were eating together, chatting away with each other.
A small step, perhaps? But all journeys begin with one, and the increased security in Baghdad, brought on by the surge, appears to have helped set this one in motion.