Several major news organizations wrongly identified at least four pilots of Middle Eastern descent as likely hijackers. Two of the wrongly suspected pilots had Arabic names similar to those of two dead hijackers. A pilot living next door to one of them became a third wrong suspect. A pilot with the same last name became the fourth wrong suspect -- even though he'd been dead for a year. [Wall Street Journal] The BBC reported a transcript of a phone call made by Flight Attendant Madeline Amy Sweeney to Boston air traffic controls in which she gave the seat numbers occupied by the hijackers, and these seat numbers did not correspond with those of the men claimed by the FBI to be responsible for the hijacking: The FBI has named five hijackers on board Flight 11, whereas Ms Sweeney spotted only four. Also, the seat numbers she gave were different from those registered in the hijackers' names. [BBC News] CNN reported that the men who hijacked the aircraft used phony IDs containing the names of real people living in Arab nations in the middle east. The Saudi Airlines pilot, Saeed Al-Ghamdi, 25, and Abdulaziz Al-Omari, an engineer from Riyadh, are furious that the hijackers' "personal details" - including name, place, date of birth and occupation - matched their own. [Telegraph] The FBI says there is no evidence to link the above men to the 9/11 hijackings. In September 2002, [FBI Director Robert Mueller] told CNN twice that there is "no legal proof to prove the identities of the suicidal hijackers." [Insight] So, one fact is apparent. If those who hijacked the 9/11 airplanes were using stolen identities, then we don't know who they were or who they worked for. We can't. It's impossible. A Saudi embassy official said it was difficult to know for certain whether the hijackers used bogus names. "You cannot throw a stone in Saudi Arabia without hitting an Al Ghamdi," he said, referring to the alleged last name of three of the hijackers. [Chicago Tribune] Now, people who are intending to commit suicide normally don't worry about whether anyone knows their real name, and it is here that some other odd aspects of this case take on a new meaning. We are told that the group that planned and carried out the 9/11 attacks were highly trained (possibly by the CIA) experts, with knowledge of how to steal identities and forge fake IDs, yet at the same time we are being told that these men were incapable of correctly filling in US visa applications. We are also being told that they spent the night before the attack getting drunk in bars, making noise, screaming insults at the "infidels", and doing everything they could to attract attention to themselves. They used the credit cards issued in their stolen names, allowed their driver's licenses with the stolen names to be photocopied, and used public library computers to send emails back and forth using their stolen names signed to unencrypted messages about their plans to steal aircraft and crash them into buildings, then decorated their apartments with absurdly obvious props such as a crop dusting manual to the point where the whole affair reads like a low budget "B" detective movie from the 1930s. In short, these men did everything they could to make sure everyone knew who they were, or more to the point, who they were pretending to be. Because the IDs used by the hijackers were phony, we cannot know who they really were or who they really worked for. But what is apparent is that those who planned the hijackings and the 9/11 attacks went out of their way to leave plenty of clues pointing to citizens of middle eastern Arab nations. Many of the investigators believe that some of the initial clues that were uncovered about the terrorists' identities and preparations, such as flight manuals, were meant to be found. A former high-level intelligence official told me, "Whatever trail was left was left deliberately—for the F.B.I. to chase." [The New Yorker] We don't know who planned 9/11 attacks. But we do know who they wanted us to think they were. We do know who they intended America to blame for the attacks.