talked or david abrams and the american legacy foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to reducing tobacco use funded masterdst from the settlement agreement between state attorney general and tobacco industry in 1998 has called the e-cigarette intentionally disruptive technology able to render the combustion of tobacco oxalate. the director fda center for tobacco products recently said we have to have an open mind for the potential of emerging technologies to benefit public health. ofaddition, a recent study the university college london on the efforts to get people to stop smoking found they are 50% more effective. many argue their product is an emerging technology and warned they do not follow the response on science may inhibit the ability to create a safer product or smokers. at the same time, we need to be mindful even if they are shown to be last armful to tobacco cigarettes, nicotine is addictive. the long-term usage and health effects of the products are currently unknown. opponents also believe they are a gateway to tobacco cigarettes. recent studies have shown with an in

i get so sick and tired of having them look at richard perle and david from and robert kagan and elliott abramson and on and then for every speaker like you who comes on, there are 10 of those others. i would encourage c-span watchers to go to you and your to try to getite an alternative point of view. you are a breath of fresh air. c-span wants to be fair and balanced, they need more speakers like you. you have been to the region. you are an iranian expert. we need to know both sides of an issue. talk about you and your husband's visits to iran for example, which is one of the main players in this, and these current crises. i think the caller for his comments about me. i want to focus on one point he makes in particular. sector that have been several times to iran, to iraq, to turkey. to egypt. you wento be that if to a country and he spent time there and you really bothered to listen to people there, people , thatu may not agree with used to be seen as scholarship. that used to be seen as trying to understand the other perspective on its own merits, you couldo that inform policy debates in th

david from ohio. he is apparent. hi. caller: good morning c-span and the c-span audience. miss abrams, i appreciated your comments about bankruptcy. it is sort of ironic. i believe it was president bush who disallow the bankruptcy option. what is ironic about it is before he was president and he was involved with companies that did go bankrupt. these so-calledl captains of industry on all the business shows, and i heard one of them -- i will not mention their names but they are all on cnbc and fox -- but one of them says he uses bankruptcy as a business tactic. that option is being discriminated against with these students. they should be allowed the option. believe me, not all of them will take it. probably a smaller portion than can be imagined. and those people within a year or two will be allowed to get mortgages, credit cards. rs.y will be pure borrowe4rs i think the bankruptcy option should be on the table basically in terms of the great american spirit of fairness. thank you so much for your wonderful comments. guest: yes. we agree that not everyone would take advantage of bank

david, our nic robertson was just outside baghdad, looking at sort of the iraqi military defenses on the way into the city. and found them basically lightly defended, not even with their best abramsut there. they didn't even have the abrams tanks throughout. what is in your estimation wrong with the iraqi military? >> it's a combination of things. i think the most important two iraqs are firstly that a lot of iraqi soldiers don't necessarily want to fight for the iraqi government that is currently constituted. so they're basically bailing and leaving positions which they probably have the equipment to defend. but they just don't want to. and then the second issue is over about the last six months, isis, the islamic state of iraq and the levant has been building alliances with the former baathist regime. and a lot of the people that were senior within the iraqi military have been reached by that group of people. so that there is potentially some issues of loyalty and competence within the senior leadership within the iraqi military. >> is there any chance for the iraqi military as it currently is serving the government that they are currently serving to roll back any of the advanc

i get so sick and tired of having to look at richard perle and david from robert kagan and kenneth adelman and elliott abrams and on and on and on and then for every speaker like you who comes on there are 10 of those others. i would encourage c-span watchers to go to you and your husband's web site right -- writes for iran.com as well as iran press tv to get an alternative point of view. you are a breath of fresh air and c-span really wants to be -- "fox news" fair and balanced than they need more speakers like you. i would ask you, you have been to the region. you are an iranian expert and we need to know both sides of an issue. if nothing else talk about you and your husband's visits to iran for example which is one of the main players in this current crisis. >> guest: of course i think the caller for his comments about me. i want to focus on one point he makes in particular, which is the fact that i have been several times to iran, to iraq, to turkey, to saudi arabia. it was a student in egypt working at the u.s. embassy in a lot of these places. it used to be that if you went to a country and he spent t