Montel Williams turned the question on live television when he choose to focus on the solders dying in Iraq rather than the passing of Heath Ledger. Montel did not return for a further segment.

COLUMBIA, S.C. - A state lawmaker wants to give members of the armed forces younger than 21 the right to buy alcohol even though it's in stark contrast to the military's efforts to diminish underage drinking and related accidents.

"I really don't think it should create a problem for the military. It might even enhance their morale," Rep. Fletcher Smith said Wednesday.

"It's absurd that people serving in the military are trained to kill on the battlefield but at the same time couldn't come back home and have a beer," the Greenville Democrat said. "If you're old enough to get training in the U.S. military, you should be old enough to get a beer. That training really matures a person."

"If a man is old enough to defend his country and die for his country," he shouldn't be told he's too young for a beer, said Rep. Grady Brown, D-Bishopville.

Suicides Among Active-Duty Soldiers Reach Record High

Suicides among active-duty soldiers in 2007 reached their highest level since the Army began keeping such records in 1980, according to a draft internal study obtained by The Washington Post. Last year, 121 soldiers took their own lives, nearly 20 percent more than in 2006.

At the same time, the number of attempted suicides or self-inflicted injuries in the Army has jumped sixfold since the Iraq war began. Last year, about 2,100 soldiers injured themselves or attempted suicide, compared with about 350 in 2002, according to the U.S. Army Medical Command Suicide Prevention Action Plan.

The conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan have placed severe stress on the Army, caused in part by repeated and lengthened deployments. Historically, suicide rates tend to decrease when soldiers are in conflicts overseas, but that trend has reversed in recent years. From a suicide rate of 9.8 per 100,000 active-duty soldiers in 2001 -- the lowest rate on record -- the Army reached an all-time high of 17.5 suicides per 100,000 active-duty soldiers in 2006.

Million Iraqis dead since invasion

A new study estimates that more than 1 million Iraqis have died because of the war in Iraq since the US-led invasion of the country in 2003.

Data compiled by London-based Opinion Research Business (ORB) and its research partner in Iraq, the Independent Institute for Administration and Civil Society Studies (IIACSS) reveals a fifth of Iraqi households lost at least one family member between March 2003 and August 2007 due to the conflict.

"We now estimate that the death toll between March 2003 and August 2007 is likely to have been in the order of 1,033,000," ORB said in a statement.

The margin of error for the survey was 1.7 per cent, making the estimated range between 946,000 and 1.12 million fatalities.

When asked to comment, Romney simply said "Rats!"

Meanwhile, Rudy 9ui11iani's campaign - in honor of the terrorist attack he can't stop talking about - collapsed and crumbled like a pair of plane-stricken burning skyscrapers.

With Rudy gone, the GOP race comes down to a battle between.....

Rats -vs- Sweets

"What really triggered it for him, according to Saddam, was he had sent his foreign minister to Kuwait to meet with the Emir Al Sabah, the former leader of Kuwait, to try to resolve some of these issues. And the Emir told the foreign minister of Iraq that he would not stop doing what he was doing until he turned every Iraqi woman into a $10 prostitute. And that really sealed it for him, to invade Kuwait. He wanted to punish, he told me, Emir Al Sabah, for saying that," Piro explains.

"He told me that most of the WMD had been destroyed by the U.N. inspectors in the '90s. And those that hadn't been destroyed by the inspectors were unilaterally destroyed by Iraq," Piro says.

"He considered him to be a fanatic. And as such was very wary of him. He told me, 'You can't really trust fanatics,'" Piro says.

Piro says Saddam thought that Bin Laden was a threat to him and his regime.

Bush, Facing Woes in '08, Focuses on War and Taxes

Facing an unstable economy and an unfinished war, President Bush used his final State of the Union address Monday night to call for quick passage of his tax rebate package, patience in Iraq and a modest concluding agenda that includes $300 million in scholarship money for low-income children in struggling schools.

Mr. Bush devoted relatively little of his 53 minute speech to the economy, the issue that is the top concern of voters during this election year. He spent far more time talking about the issue that has been his own primary concern, Iraq.

Our message to the people of Iran is clear. We have no quarrel with you. We have respect your traditions and your history. We look forward to the day when you have your freedom.

Our message to the leaders of Iran is also clear. Verifiably suspend your nuclear enrichment so negotiations can begin. And to rejoin the community of nations, come clean about your nuclear intentions and past actions. Stop your oppression at home. Cease your support for terror abroad.

And tonight I have a message for the brave and oppressed people of Iraq: Your enemy is not surrounding your country, your enemy is ruling your country.

In Afghanistan, America, our 25 NATO allies and 15 partner nations are helping the Afghan people defend their freedom and rebuild their country.

Thanks to the courage of these military and civilian personnel, a nation that was once a safe haven for al Qaeda is now a young democracy where boys and girls are going to school. New roads and hospitals are being built. And people are looking to the future with new hope.

These successes must continue. So we're adding 3,200 Marines to our forces in Afghanistan, where they will fight the terrorists and train the Afghan army and police.

Bush to ask for $70 billion in partial 2009 war funding

The Bush administration will ask Congress next week for $70 billion to fund the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and other related operations for part of the 2009 fiscal year, the Pentagon said on Monday.

The funding would be in addition to the administration's request for the regular Pentagon budget which is to be presented next week.

Since the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States, Congress has approved $691 billion to pay for wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and such related activities as Iraq reconstruction, the Congressional Budget Office said last week.

Of the total, the CBO estimated that $440 billion had been spent on the war in Iraq.

President George W. Bush will begin "unprecedented steps" to trim billions of dollars earmarked by lawmakers for pet projects, a White House spokesman said.

Bush will issue an executive order tomorrow directing federal agencies to ignore any earmarks included only in committee reports, not in the text of legislation.

Congress approved more than 11,700 earmarks valued at a total of more than $19 billion for the fiscal 2008 spending year, according to the Office of Management and Budget.

President Bush and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki issued a joint letter in November. On the surface, the "Declaration of Principles" appears as a mutual "expression of friendship," as it has been characterized by administration officials.

The "Declaration of Principles" includes language that seems run-of-the-mill. The United States will help get Iraq into the World Trade Organization. The two countries will engage in scientific and cultural exchanges.

But it also includes a provision that promises to maintain the stability of Iraq's government from "internal and external threats." This sentence is raising alarms for some U.S. lawmakers.

Any such agreement would be considered a treaty by many legal experts. And under the U.S. Constitution, treaties have to be ratified by Congress.

"The declaration of principles would appear to commit the United States to keeping the elected Iraqi government in power against internal threats," says Kenneth Katzman, a Middle East analyst at the Congressional Research Service. "I leave it to the lawyers to determine whether that's the definition of a treaty or not but it certainly seems to be - is going to be - a hefty U.S. commitment to Iraq for a long time."

Such a hefty commitment would be unprecedented in the history of American foreign policy.

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