Glenn Beck: Rules of Deception
July 14, 2008 - 12:55 ET
GLENN: Tomorrow in bookstores there is a book out called Rules of Deception by Chris Reich. It is -- again Chris is here in the studio with me. Have you seen the review of the New York Times?
REICH: It was a great thing to read. Thank you, yes.
GLENN: They never review a book like this.
REICH: I was very fortunate. I'm glad they liked it.
GLENN: What the heck, did you think to yourself, holy crap, maybe it sucks, the New York Times loves it.
REICH: That is a nerve-wracking moment, when you open that paper.
GLENN: What did you think it was going to say.
REICH: Well, I hoped they would like the book, something I worked very hard, the kind of book that I love reading, fast pace page turner. So this was really a work of love for many years. And then I just got my fingers crossed.
GLENN: You've been writing this for three years. You had this idea, what, three years ago?
REICH: Three years ago, yes.
GLENN: I love the way this works because it starts with a butterfly. Just explain the opening scene.
REICH: It opens up with a small butterfly flying over this kind of perimeter of neatly toiled glass in an unknown location. All of a sudden the butterfly crashes and a guard happens upon it and he sees this is not a regular butterfly; this butterfly has a microwave transmitter in it, some wires, and he goes, uh-oh, we've been discovered.
GLENN: That's just fascinating. And the technology in the book like the butterfly, do we use that stuff?
REICH: All this, one of the fun things about writing the book, Glenn, was that everything you read in this book, whether you heard about it or not, is true. Everything I've gotten exists now is being used by the defense department, by the army, by the CIA including butterflies, little unmanned aerial vehicles that can be absolutely tiny. They are being used.
GLENN: Serious, like a little --
REICH: Oh, they can make them even smaller than the book. They can make them several inches across now. You program, they could fly for, you know, hours and hours and then transmit data back to.
GLENN: That's a little frightening, isn't it?
REICH: More and more we live in the surveillance world.
GLENN: It is. It's really frightening. The thing that's interesting about the book is you take on Iran and what's happening over in Iran. I have said on this program over and over again, I'm not this smart. How is it I can see these things coming and, boom, all of a sudden here they are. Everything that you write about in this book is all starting to come true now.
REICH: Unfortunately it is. These are trends that I saw, you know, several years ago. Namely our move toward let's say a war status with Iran that's basically unavoidable. Now, the book takes as its premise the fact that Iran is making a very close to weaponizing nuclear weapons, nuclear materials.
GLENN: No.
REICH: No. And as they are, and we discover it, that little butterfly discovers the fact that, uh-oh, they are ready, they have crossed the red line and what are going to be the consequences now.
GLENN: What is the red line?
REICH: Well, the red line is the level let's say that Israel says once Iran crosses this line, which means once they have a certain amount of enriched uranium that they could put on the tip of a nuclear weapon, boom, end of story, we are going to act. We have crossed that line, Glenn. This is going down this year.
GLENN: You really think so?
REICH: I am absolutely convinced.
GLENN: You know, I said two years ago, before Bush leaves office he will go -- he was not going to leave Iran in place. However I can't remember the name of that report that came out that said, oh, no, don't worry about it, they're --
REICH: National Intelligence Estimate.
GLENN: Yes. And it took him off that track and I didn't think that he would be able to do it. But I am back to the place to where I think Israel is going to do it and we will be involved in it one way or another. You printed in the book, and I want to know if you think this is true, that they are like spray -- that we have people, operatives in Iran spray-painting targets on buildings?
REICH: Well, one of the reasons the idea, how I got the idea for this book was about three and a half years ago I was working on a TV pilot with General Tommy Franks as the consultant and he was talking about these special secret operators that work behind enemy lines and one of the missions they were on that they had completed was to go inside Iran and to paint all these buildings where they suspected nuclear weapons were being made with certain radioactive substances that could later then be picked up by overflying aircraft, programmed in the munitions, bang, you won't miss.
GLENN: So then one of the trip wires that I have been looking for is when they kick out the UN inspectors because unlike plutonium, enriching uranium, you'll see it all over the ground. If you're in there with -- am I right on this?
REICH: I think so, yes.
GLENN: Yeah, that you'll see it all over the -- that they can't enrich it up to, what is it, 95% enriched or whatever it needs to be without it being seen. So the trip wire that you're looking for is really the kicking out of the inspectors because that means they are ready to produce and they will begin producing it without anybody being able to see and then it's just a matter of really very short period of time of making it into a bomb.
So the idea behind the book is do we -- because I haven't read it yet. Please tell me we win in the end.
REICH: Well, it depends who you're rooting for but, of course, --
GLENN: Holy cow. Now that I realize the New York Times loves it, Iran wins, huh?
REICH: I don't think Iran wins and we certainly don't want them to. But, you know, it is, really it's about an American doctor. It's also a love story about an American doctor, Jonathan Ransom who works for doctors without borders, kind of in the real hot spots around the world with his lovely English wife and as the book opens up, his wife is killed in this terrible accident in the Swiss Alps and in no time he starts discovering this woman, they are soulmates, they spent eight years together, he loves her completely, he starts going, uh-oh, I don't have a clue who this woman really is.
GLENN: She was actually -- it's kind of, I hate to compare it to the movie but it's the only one I can compare like this, what was the Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie movie.
REICH: This is a very serious Mr. and Mrs. Smith.
GLENN: So he had no idea absolutely who she was.
REICH: The whole idea is this organization for whom she was working which shall remain nameless might have been using him to put her in place to do these kind of nefarious deeds or depends what side, very practical deeds or nefarious depending on who side you are.
GLENN: Give me the practical nefarious deed. Give me one.
REICH: One of the things that they -- her job, for example, one of the things she did was to go in the old Yugoslavia, in those war-torn areas and help take out one of the warlords who had evaded capture and remission or being sent over to the UN war crimes trials.
GLENN: Are you a rendition kind of guy? Do you believe in rendition, or not?
REICH: I do.
GLENN: Do you really?
REICH: I'll just say that I do. It's necessary. We have to take steps. You know, this is a world that's changed dramatically. I do not believe the Geneva convention applies now to these sort of --
GLENN: Are you for Guantanamo?
REICH: I think Guantanamo definitely serves a point. The problem is that when you go too far, you have too many people or you are keeping the wrong people. But sometimes you have to err on the side of being conservative to make sure you do keep the dangerous ones.
GLENN: I think I agree with you. This is the argument here that gets so fuzzy is rendition, we pick them up and then we take them some place else. We take them to Saudi Arabia and let them torture them over there because we're too good to do it. If we really believe in that, shouldn't we be the ones, shouldn't we stand up and square our shoulders and say, you know what, there are that I think so that you don't want to know we do and there are things that we do that we do that we have to do. Isn't it better to say --
REICH: It is better to say to man up, man up and say we took this guy off the streets, he's our responsibility and we will, you know, fess up and do what's necessary.
GLENN: Just to be completely frank with you because you know that I'm -- if you listen to this program, you know that I'm completely straight up with you. I have not read this book. However, it is on the top of my list to read when it comes out tomorrow. The guys on my staff who have read it said it is the best summer book they have read yet. I cannot read it -- I can't wait to read it. It's Rules of Deception out tomorrow.
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