Saddam's Loyalists Thwart Polygraph Tests

[George W. Maschke]

Rowan Scarborough reports in an article in today's (21 July 2003) Washington Times titled, "Saddam's loyalists thwart polygraph tests." Exerpt:

Captured Saddam Hussein loyalists in Iraq are proving adept at beating lie-detector tests, frustrating attempts to find banned weapons and to learn what happened to Navy Capt. Michael Scott Speicher.

U.S. officials and military officers say trained interrogators in Baghdad have caught Iraqi Ba'ath Party loyalists lying while hooked up to the machine, which showed they were not being deceptive.

Officials attribute the lying to many factors. They say it may have become part of the culture of Saddam's regime to lie routinely. In other cases, the Iraqi intelligence service and Special Security Organization trained operators how to "beat" the machine. And there is the issue that polygraphs, which measure changes in heartbeat, respiration and perspiration, are simply not accurate.

[orolan]

George,
Gotta love that last sentence

[Anonymous]

And here we have, courtesy of the U.S. Government, one more massive screw-up in the war on terrorism.  We find ourselves fighting a 21st century war with third world technology and an experimental paradign/game plan with zero validity.  Although people everywhere are now questioning whether Saddam's henchmen could have beat us (even had any to speak of) with WMDS, presumably nobody should be surprised about his beating us through polygraph exams...

[orolan]

They just have the wrong people over there doing the polygraphs. Perhaps the polygraphers frequenting this board, with their inate ability to sniff out CM's and their 82-100% rate of confessions should volunteer their services

[Saidme]

G-Man

The article states:

"U.S. officials and military officers say trained interrogators in Baghdad have caught Iraqi Ba'ath Party loyalists lying while hooked up to the machine, which showed they were not being deceptive."

Sounds like a post-test interrogation to me.  But I guess you wouldn't know much about that except what you've read in books.

Orolan

I can't believe it's as low as 82%.  Gotta be in the 90's.

[orolan]

Saidme,
I think it was Public Servant who threw out the 9 confessions out of 11 DI's, thus the 82%. Not as good as your 100%, but maybe he hasn't been doing it as long

[Saidme]

Not 100% but certainly up there.

[Human Subject]

Saidme, why do you attribute the interrogators' success at discovering lies to the polygraph?  I see nothing in the story to suggest they wouldn't have discovered the subjects' lies even if they weren't hooked up to polygraphs.

There are plenty of other ways to discover deception, like comparing statements to the known facts, or comparing statements made by multiple subjects.

The bottom line is the machines showed no deception even when the interrogators knew they were being deceived.

Notice also that no mention is made of the interrogators detecting the use of countermeasures.  They merely speculate that this is one possible explanation for the results.

There's really nothing to this story that lends much support to our reliance on polygraphy.

[Human Subject]

Here's an example from the full article.

In one incident, an Iraqi involved in a weapons program was shown two pictures. In one, officials cut his image out of a photo of workers at a weapons factory. He agreed that the cut-out image was of him. They then showed him the full photo, with his image restored. This time, he denied that he was in the photo. The polygraph did not catch him in this blatant lie.

Wonder what old Doc Marston would have to say about this?

And we rely on this technology as a method of screening applicants to sensitive government and law enforcement posts?  Nice.  So these positions are now populated by applicants who were lucky, lack a conscience, are effective practitioners of countermeasures, or some combination thereof.

[Saidme]

HS

Without an intimate knowledge of the interrogation you or I can't know exactly what took place.  We can speculate (SWAG) all we want (which happens regularly here).  In order to make an informed decision I think we would had to have been there.  Wouldn't you agree?

[George W. Maschke]

I think it is clear from Rowan Scarborough's article that he has a high level Pentagon source who is telling him that the polygraph isn't working.

[suethem]

I guess countermeasues do exist!

It seems like they work too!

Surely these polygraphers were amoung the best- Hmmm!

[Batman]

When you're polygraphing the biggest ASSHOLES in the world, you have to believe that their CM's will work.

A really high level source in the Pentagon?  Well let's see, maybe a Major or Lt Col, or an assistant to the assistants assistant to the Deputy Under Secretary for bullshit.  Come on George, this is the media we're talking about here.  They have even less credibility than polygraph examiners.

BATMAN

[suethem]

Batman,

Your statement just confirms that the techniques (CM's) work.  If they work for terrorists, they work for regular citizens.  

I assume that they guys will be investigated thoroughly even though they have passed.  I doubt there is anyone dumb enough in the Gov to stand by the polygraphers findings- although you never know...

[Saidme]

What the hell is a regular citizen?  I'm stymied!