Post by George W. Maschke on Jan 3rd, 2010 at 9:01am
ABC News reports that the suicide bomber who killed at least six CIA employees at Forward Operating Base Chapman in Khost, Afghanistan "was a regular CIA informant who had visited the same base multiple times in the past."
If this is true, then it is very likely that the bomber passed a CIA polygraph test. It is decades-old CIA practice to vet informants by means of polygraph screening.
Former National Security Council chief counterterrorism adviser Richard Clarke opined to Good Morning America weekend edition anchor Kate Snow that the bomber "was probably a double-agent all along." If that is indeed the case, then the CIA's reliance on polygraphy may well have been a contributing factor in the chain of events leading to the CIA officers' deaths.
As the CIA reviews its security procedures, now would be an opportune occasion for the Agency to heed the conclusion of the National Academy of Sciences that polygraph screening is completely invalid and end its misplaced reliance on the pseudoscience of polygraphy.
In this regard, it's worth recalling that the man who introduced the polygraph to the CIA back in 1948, and who devised protocols that are to this very day used by polygraph operators nationwide, is a crackpot who believes that plants can read human thought.
It's also worth recalling that, as documented here on AntiPolygraph.org more than seven years ago, unlike the CIA, Al-Qaeda understands that the lie detector is a sham: it's in their Encylopedia of Jihad! Shouldn't the CIA be at least as smart as the enemy it is confronting?
As I've said before, make-believe science yields make-believe security.
If this is true, then it is very likely that the bomber passed a CIA polygraph test. It is decades-old CIA practice to vet informants by means of polygraph screening.
Richard Clarke with Kate Snow on Good Morning America, 2 January 2010
Former National Security Council chief counterterrorism adviser Richard Clarke opined to Good Morning America weekend edition anchor Kate Snow that the bomber "was probably a double-agent all along." If that is indeed the case, then the CIA's reliance on polygraphy may well have been a contributing factor in the chain of events leading to the CIA officers' deaths.
As the CIA reviews its security procedures, now would be an opportune occasion for the Agency to heed the conclusion of the National Academy of Sciences that polygraph screening is completely invalid and end its misplaced reliance on the pseudoscience of polygraphy.
In this regard, it's worth recalling that the man who introduced the polygraph to the CIA back in 1948, and who devised protocols that are to this very day used by polygraph operators nationwide, is a crackpot who believes that plants can read human thought.
It's also worth recalling that, as documented here on AntiPolygraph.org more than seven years ago, unlike the CIA, Al-Qaeda understands that the lie detector is a sham: it's in their Encylopedia of Jihad! Shouldn't the CIA be at least as smart as the enemy it is confronting?
As I've said before, make-believe science yields make-believe security.