These are some interesting statistics (not quite what we're used to hearing on the evening news) from a speech by Josh Chavetz to the Oxford Union:

"There have been three independent opinion polls conducted in Iraq since the end of the war, and all of them show that Iraqis are overwhelmingly optimistic and welcoming of the coalition presence. The first, conducted by the Iraq Center for Research & Strategic Studies in June, found that 65 percent of Baghdadis wanted U.S. troops to stay for now; only 17 percent wanted an immediate pull-out. A Zogby International poll in August talked to people in Basra, Mosul, Kirkuk, and Ramadi. 70% expected their personal and political lives to improve in the next five years; 60% favored freedom of religion; and 74% wanted to see serious punishment for former Ba'ath party officials. In the most recent poll, conducted by Gallup in September, 67% of Baghdadis think Iraq will be better off in 5 years than it was before the war, with only 8% thinking it will be worse off. 62% said that ousting Saddam was worth the ensuing hardships, and 60% had a favorable view of the Governing Council. When asked to choose between a number of options for a permanent government, a strong plurality, at 40%, chose parliamentary democracy, while only 10% chose Islamic theocracy."

Read it in its entirety here.