Well, welcome everyone to another debate from Intelligent Squared U.S.

I'm John Donovan of ABC News and again it is my honor to be serving as moderator

as the four debaters you see sharing the stage with me here at the Skurball Center for the Performing Arts at New York University.

Two against two will be debating this motion treat terrorists like enemy combatants not criminals.

Now this is a debate there will be a winner and a loser and you our audience will be serving as the judges.

By the time the debate has ended we will have asked you to vote twice once both before the debate and once again after you have heard the arguments.

And the team that has changed the most minds once we see where you stand on the motion that team will be declared our winner.

So on to the debate round one opening statements by each debater in turn.

Our motion is treat terrorists like enemy combatants not criminals and I would like to introduce our first debater arguing for this motion.

Mark Tyson who is a columnist for the Washington Post, a former speech writer for President George Bush.

He came out with a book this year that was a stiff defense of the interrogation methods used by the CIA and it sold really really well.

Actually Mark congratulations to you so a lot of people liked it your critics don't like it.

I think Jane Mayer of the Washington Post calls it the the Bible for the torture apologist is that fair?

No not at all.

Okay ladies and gentlemen I'm surprised you said that Mark Tyson.

Thank you John.

I'd like to start by asking members of the audience a question with a show of hands how many of you remember exactly where you were when the attacks of September 11.

Let the record show it's everybody.

I want you to think back to that time.

I was in the Pentagon on September 11, 2001.

I was blessed not to be at the point of impact but I was a few quarters down and I remember feeling the building shutter.

I remember the smell and the one thing I'd remember very distinctly is that the alarms never went off the evacuation alarms.

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