AP - As of Tuesday, Jan. 6, 2009, at least 4,222 members of the U.S. military had died in the Iraq war since it began in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.

AFP - Five former guards from US security firm Blackwater Worldwide, a State Department contractor in Iraq, Tuesday pleaded not guilty to killing 14 Iraqi civilians and wounding 18 others by gunfire and grenades at a busy Baghdad intersection in 2007.

AP - Five former Blackwater Worldwide security guards pleaded not guilty Tuesday to federal manslaughter and gun charges resulting from a 2007 shooting in a crowded Baghdad square that killed 17 Iraqi civilians and injured dozens of others.