At the al-Sinna sports club stadium, less than 500 metres from the Canal Hotel, UN headquarters in Baghdad, thousands of people gathered to celebrate Baghdad Day. Young girls in wispy white chiffon cloaks prepared to dance en masse to the sound of a military band.
Adding to the joy was the sheer knowledge that President Saddam Hussein had again out-foxed his enemies and avoided a military strike. This time few, if any, knew just how close it had been.
The Iraqi turnaround began just after 2 p.m. at the Ministry of Information, where more than 100 foreign journalists had been holed up awaiting the strikes so many were sure would come.
A senior figure from the Information Ministry walked into the tiny area inhabited by the news agencies and delivered a brief and terse statement. "Iraq will respond positively to the letter from the UN Secretary-General," he said.
Amid the chaotic scrambling for satellite phones and links, it was difficult to believe that it was really happening. Iraq had, for the second time in a year, brought the full might of the US to the brink of unleashing its firepower and pulled back.
According to reliable reports from Washington, the order had already been given and the B-52 bombers were heading for their targets. From the White House President Clinton had consulted his national security advisers and signed the executive order authorising military action.
Hundreds of Tomahawk cruise missiles were being made ready. A total of 251 targets had been identified. They included many in the centre of Baghdad, a stone's throw from the Ministry of Information where the world's press was waiting to broadcast the results. The difference between life and death for goodness knows how many Iraqis was a mere two hours.
What stopped the US and the British in mid-flight was a letter from Iraq's Deputy Prime Minister, Mr Tariq Aziz. The letter said Iraq "never sought to sever the relationship with UNSCOM (the UN weapons inspectors) and to cease its obligations" under UN resolutions. Iraq would "give a further chance to achieve justice by lifting sanctions. The leadership of Iraq [has] decided to resume working with the Special Commission and to allow them to perform their normal duties in accordance with the relevant resolutions of the Security Council," the letter said.
On the face of it, Iraq had backed down from the confrontation with no explanation. However, attached to the letter to the UN Secretary-General, Mr Kofi Annan, was an annex, another note detailing half a dozen Iraqi aims and aspirations.
Were they merely vague ideas Iraq was floating or were these conditions which were attached to the original letter to Mr Annan? The French said they were not. The US, whose bombers were still homing in on Iraqi targets, said they were. Further clarifications were needed.
This was television diplomacy. The BBC and CNN received the letter before it reached the office of Mr Prakash Shah, the UN's special representative in Baghdad, and before it reached Mr Annan. The Clinton Administration must have been glued to their television screens.
If the Gulf War was the first to be covered live on international television, Iraq seems to have again been the source of another media innovation. This was the first war that was averted by live television.
Clarifications were duly supplied to the international television broadcasters, and those Iraqis privileged enough to have access to satellite channels watched Mr Clinton agree that President Saddam had fulfilled the US demand for a full capitulation.
Iraq will allow the weapons inspectors unfettered access to suspected chemical and biological sites. The world will again have eyes and ears in one of the Middle East's most unpredictable and potentially powerful countries.
The Iraqis in the Ministry of Information were jubilant. "Our guy was going to back. I told you," said one official. "Clinton looks like a fool. Saddam has won the battle," said another.
The knowledge of the military orders was well known in the broadcasting pool. We had been alerted by the arrival on a US warship of a television crew in the Persian Gulf. This was the signal that something was about to happen. Approval for such sorties are rarely given. Those networks with State Department and Pentagon correspondents began working the phones. The correspondents confirmed that military action was probably imminent.
The former Taoiseach, Mr Albert Reynolds, also apparently knew. In a fax sent to Baghdad earlier in the week and inadvertently shown to me, the only Irish passport-holder in the Al-Rashid Hotel, he wrote that "the hawks are pushing for action on Saturday night." Mr Reynolds had earlier travelled to Baghdad as part of a delegation and had spent six hours in meetings with Mr Aziz. His faxed message to Baghdad after he had left was an extremely accurate guess, or someone in power had alerted him.
The timetable for the return of the UNSCOM mission has not been clarified, and nobody knows how long it will be before the whole international media circus descends on Iraq once again to test the limits of its inadequate infrastructure. But among Iraqis and foreigners alike there was a sure feeling that it will happen and probably soon. It could be a matter of weeks.
The Iraqi annex which caused so much confusion is clearly a statement of the hopes of the government. It says, for example, that the comprehensive review of Iraq's compliance with disarmament should "be carried out within a short time (seven days, for example) after the resumption of UNSCOM's normal duties." What happens if the review is delayed?
The US and Britain have made it abundantly clear that next time the hailstorm of deadly missiles will fall without notice. Perhaps there will be no television coverage this time. An Iraqi war without television? It is almost inconceivable.
At the Baghdad Day demonstration were thousands of fresh-faced men armed better than the average European soldier, marching in military formation, chanting patriotic slogans, each armed with a Kalashnikov and wearing a hard helmet. And behind them loomed two tennis-court-sized pictures of President Saddam.