CIA Using Polygraph to Screen New Iraqi Intelligence Agency

In an article titled, “Iraq Spy Service Planned by U.S. To Stem Attacks,”Washington Post staff writers Dana Priest and Robin Wright mention that “[t]o vet Iraq’s former intelligence officials, the CIA has flown polygraph machines to Iraq.” Agents for the “new” Iraqi intelligence service are to be recruited largely from the ranks of Saddam Hussein’s former organization, the dreaded Mukhabarat. In relying on the polygraph, the CIA is blatantly disregarding the conclusions of the National Academy of Sciences, which found polygraph screening to be completely invalid and warned that a belief in its accuracy not justified by the evidence poses a danger to national security objectives. Note also that the Washington Times has previously reported that Baath Party loyalists are “proving adept at beating lie-detector tests.”

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