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''Are we going to say kids who are here illegally are going to get a special deal?'' Romney asked.

Huckabee objected, saying the benefit was based on merit. ''We are a better country than to punish children for what their parents did,'' he said.

The most fierce exchanges were among the candidates with the most at stake with only five weeks left before the first voting in the presidential contest begins. Giuliani leads in national polls but trails Romney in early-voting Iowa and New Hampshire. Romney faces challenges from Huckabee in Iowa and from Giuliani and McCain in New Hampshire.

Thompson, in what amounted to one of the first video attacks of the campaign, questioned the conservative credentials of two of his rivals in a YouTube clip. The video challenged Romney on abortion and Huckabee on taxes.

''I wanted to give my buddies here a little extra air time,'' Thompson said to laughter as he defended the video.

For Thompson, Romney and Huckabee are his biggest obstacles toward establishing himself as the candidate of conservatives.

''I was wrong, I was effectively pro-choice,'' said Romney, who has said he changed his stance in 2004 during debates on stem cell research. ''On abortion, I was wrong.''

''If people are looking for somebody in this country who has never made a mistake ... then they ought to find somebody else,'' he said.

As the front-runner, Giuliani faced questions about gun control, abortion and whether New York taxpayers foot the bill for security he received while the married mayor visited his then-girlfriend, Judith Nathan, now his wife.

Giuliani said he had 24-hour protection as mayor because of threats against him and said all costs incurred were proper.

''I had nothing to do with the handling of their records,'' he said of how his security detail reported the expenses. ''And they were handled, as far as I know, perfectly appropriately.''

McCain, who has shown no love for Romney during the campaign, seized on Romney's response to a question about the legality of waterboarding as an interrogation technique. Romney said that as a candidate he would not publicly discuss what techniques he would rule out. That prompted McCain, a former Vietnam POW, to assert that waterboarding is indeed torture and should not be tolerated.

''Governor, let me tell you, if we're going to gain the high ground in this world ... we're not going to torture people,'' McCain said. ''How in the world someone could think that that kind of thing could be inflicted on people who are in our custody is absolutely beyond me.''

McCain also engaged Ron Paul, a Texas congressman whose libertarian views and opposition to the war have attracted thousands of donors, millions of dollars and a devoted online following.

McCain said Paul is promoting isolationism in calling for the United States to disengage from the war. ''We allowed (Adolf) Hitler to come to power with that attitude of isolation,'' he said.

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