Saddam's loyalists thwart polygraph tests

The Washington Times ^ | July 21, 2003 | Rowan Scarborough

[George Maschke]

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.

[George Maschke]

I'm concerned about the extent to which our government is relying on polygraph testing to vet information in its search. Although polygraph operators typically claim accuracy rates in the high 90th percentile, such claims are not supported by peer-reviewed field studies. In its recent report, The Polygraph and Lie Detection (http://www.nap.edu/books/0309084369/html/), the U.S. National Academy of Sciences concluded that the theoretical basis for the polygraph is quite weak and that almost a century of research provides little basis for the expectation that the polygraph could have an extremely high rate of accuracy.

The dirty little secret behind the "test" is that it depends on trickery, not science. The polygrapher, while admonishing the examinee to answer all questions truthfully, secretly assumes that denials in response to certain questions -- called "control" questions -- will be less than truthful.

One commonly used control question is, "Did you ever lie to get out of trouble?" The polygrapher steers the examinee into a denial by suggesting, for example, that anyone who would do so is the same kind of person who would, for example, fabricate a story about having seen a missing pilot. But secretly, it is assumed that everyone has lied to get out of trouble.

The polygrapher scores the test by comparing physiological reactions to these probable-lie control questions with reactions to relevant questions such as, "Did you see Michael Scott Speicher in 1998?" If the former reactions are greater, the examinee passes; if the latter are greater, he fails. This simplistic methodology has no grounding in the scientific method.

Polygraph tests also include irrelevant questions like "Is today Monday?" The polygrapher falsely explains to the examinee that such questions provide a "baseline for truth," but in reality, they are not scored at all and merely serve as buffers between sets of relevant and control questions.

Investigators value the polygraph because naive and gullible examinees sometimes make admissions/confessions. But many truthful persons fail the "test." Perversely, the test is biased against the truthful because the more honestly one answers the control questions, and as a consequence feels less stress when answering them, the more likely one is to fail.

Conversely, liars can beat the test by covertly augmenting their physiological reactions to the control questions. This can be done by constricting the anal sphincter muscle, biting the side of the tongue, or merely thinking exciting thoughts. Although polygraphers frequently claim they can detect such countermeasures, no polygrapher has ever demonstrated any ability to do so, and peer-reviewed research indicates that they can't.

It is completely inappropriate for investigators to use polygraph chart readings to bolster (or undermine) a source's credibility.

To learn how anyone can beat a polygraph test, download AntiPolygraph.org's free e-book, The Lie Behind the Lie Detector (738 kb PDF):

http://antipolygraph.org/lie-behind-the-lie-detector.pdf

[NewRomeTacitus]

Of course, Wahhabist fanaticism soars completely over any Western idea of truth or fiction. Sociopathic tendency also beats these toys every time.

[ChadGore]

A muslim? Spending a lifetime learning how to lie to himself and others ?

Say it isn't so ! < / sarcasm >

[livius]

Even though Saddam's dictatorship was initially a secular one, I think the Muslim attitude towards lying - it's okay, if you're lying to an "infidel" - is very much a part of that culture.

[George Maschke]

Of course, Wahhabist fanaticism soars completely over any Western idea of truth or fiction. Sociopathic tendency also beats these toys every time.

The cited article has absolutely nothing to do with Wahabbism or Islam. In any event, the Baathist government of Saddam Hussein was very much a secular one. Michel Aflaq, the Arab nationalist who is the founder of Baath party ideology, was a Syrian Christian.

The attempt by U.S. Government officials to explain away the failure of the polygraph by speculating that "it may have become part of the culture of Saddam's regime to lie routinely" is really quite absurd. CIA agents also lie routinely in their undercover work, and yet the CIA uses the polygraph to screen them on a regular basis. The problem with the polygraph is that it has absolutely no validity as a lie detector -- it's a pseudoscientific fraud.

[WestPacSailor]

The point some are missing is that these "lie detectors" only work on people who are intimidated by them and who believe they are actually lying.
The Arab mentality is different than a Western (read U.S.)mindset towards truth vs. lies.
TRUTH and the FACTS are all too often not the same thing.

[George Maschke]

WestPacSailor,

I don't think Middle Easterners are any more prone than any other people to confuse truth with falsehood. But they may be less likely than Americans to believe in the lie detector. In America, popular culture tends to reinforce belief in the lie detector (we see it "working" in the movies and on TV all the time); that's not necessarily the case in the Middle East (or elsewhere -- the polygraph never really caught on in Europe, for example, where people tend to be much more skeptical about lie detectors).

[WestPacSailor]

I believe Arabs/Middle Easterners know full well the difference between truth and falsehood. It's just that the Arab cultures idea of 'truth' is different than the average American's idea of truth.

[George Maschke]

I'm skeptical that any postulated epistemological differences would be of any signficance in the context of a polygraph examination. Certainly, on questions like, "Did you see Michael Scott Speicher in that prison in 1998," there is little room for differences over what constitutes a truthful or a deceptive answer.

[ex-Texan]

It is a well know fact that people raised and educated in totalitarian dictatorships are skilled liars. They always lie about everything just to get by each day. It is not surprising to me that Saddam's Bath Party loyalists have been fooling the polygraph. If we were interviewing Russkies or Chinese or North Koreans the result would be the same. Its time we woke up and smelled the coffee.

The only way to get the truth out of Saddam's loyalists is torture. If we do not torture them -- they laugh themselves to sleep. They grew up under Saddam expecting the worst forms of torture imaginable. Give it to them. In a 'safe haven' like Saudi Arabia.

Just like a line in Quentin Tarantino's masterful film 'Pulp Fiction:' "I've sent a couple of guys to fetch me some plyers and a blow torch . . . Then we are going to have a party."

[George Maschke]

The only way to get the truth out of Saddam's loyalists is torture. If we do not torture them -- they laugh themselves to sleep. They grew up under Saddam expecting the worst forms of torture imaginable. Give it to them. In a 'safe haven' like Saudi Arabia.

Ex-Texan, I am dismayed that you would suggest such a thing. Torturing prisoners is a violation of the Geneva Conventions, a war crime, and un-American. It is in our interest of our own troops that the Geneva Conventions be respected internationally. We should set the example.

Moreover, torture (or threat of torture) is not necessarily the best way of getting at the truth, because in such circumstances, the prisoner will tell his interrogator whatever he thinks he wants to hear to stop the pain.

[ex-Texan]

JMHO. Take it anyway you want to, but I think SA holds all the answers to out problems. Does SA torture it own citizens? UH! Does sand blow into dunes in the desert?
Treat Saddam's loyalists like they expect to be treated. We do will be doing them a favor. Get me a blow torch and a pair of plyers.

[razorback-bert]

Chew on this fact about polygraphs in this country, a person's lawyer isn't present. It is a great way to interrogate a suspect without his lawyer present.

The CIA and the FBI have used polygraphs to catch spies for years with no success, Pollard for example.

[George Maschke]

I'm not aware that Pollard was polygraphed while spying for Israel... However, known spies who beat the polygraph include Karel Frantisek Koecher, Larry Wu-tai Chin, and Aldrich Hazen Ames, all CIA employees who spied for the Soviets/Russians, and Ana Belen Montes, a Cuban double agent who rose to become the Pentagon's highest-ranking analyst for matters relating to Cuba. In addition, the Cuban intelligence service doubled a whole network of CIA assets in Cuba in the 1980s, and all these double agents passed their CIA polygraphs...

[FreedomSurge]

I had to take a polygraph once. The first go around I passed with too high a score so I had to take a second one. The examiner then lied to me in ways he thought was clever in order to make me nervous and question myself. This polygraph stuff is highly corrupt.

[RightOnTheLeftCoast]

Lying is a way of life throughout the Arab world. If we think "lie detectors" are going to work in a culture where there is NO DIFFERENCE between fact and rank deception, we're incredibly naive.

Have we no notion of the enemy we're fighting? If so, then this is perhaps the most distressing article I've read in a two-week sh!t-storm of media negativity.

[CyberAnt]

Excuse me - why don't we truck them over to Jordan and let the Jordanese interrogate them ..??

Or .. allow us to use sodium pentathal on this group ..??

[George Maschke]

Lying is a way of life throughout the Arab world. If we think "lie detectors" are going to work in a culture where there is NO DIFFERENCE between fact and rank deception, we're incredibly naive.

I think the differences are not as great as you imagine. If you go back to the explantion of how the polygraph test actually "works" that I posted right after the Washington Times, you'll see that it is based on the assumption that everyone will be less than truthful in answering the so-called "control" questions.

[George Maschke]

Lying is a way of life throughout the Arab world. If we think "lie detectors" are going to work in a culture where there is NO DIFFERENCE between fact and rank deception, we're incredibly naive.

I think the differences are not as great as you imagine. If you go back to the explantion of how the polygraph test actually "works" that I posted right after the Washington Times, you'll see that it is based on the assumption that everyone will be less than truthful in answering the so-called "control" questions.

[George Maschke]

Lying is a way of life throughout the Arab world. If we think "lie detectors" are going to work in a culture where there is NO DIFFERENCE between fact and rank deception, we're incredibly naive.

I think the honesty differences between Arabs and Americans are not as great as you imagine. If you go back to the explantion of how the polygraph test actually "works" that I posted right after the Washington Times, you'll see that it is based on the assumption that everyone will be less than truthful in answering the so-called "control" questions.