Former Italian President Francesco Cossiga has told an Italian newspaper that the attacks on the World Trade Center on 9/11 were run by the CIA and Mossad and that this was common knowledge within the various intelligence agencies. Cossiga is thus the biggest scalp to speak out against the official 9/11 version, arguing it was a false flag operation.

Cossiga was elected President of the Italian Senate in July 1983 before winning a landslide 1985 election to become President of the country in 1985, a position he held for seven years, until April 1992. In the usual turmoil that is Italian politics, Cossiga's tendency to be outspoken upset the Italian political establishment and he was forced to resign after revealing the existence of Operation Gladio - the stay behind intelligence network, set up under NATO auspices, that was meant to be the last line of defence in case of a Communist invasion, but which instead was used - and held responsible - for a series of bombings that occurred in Italy from the 1960s to the 1980s.

As reported in Nexus Magazine, Volume 14, Number 2 (February - March 2007), a lot of Western European states experienced bombings, which were in truth organised by these stay behind elements, even though at the time of the bombings, others - often communist sympathisers - were blamed for the atrocities. They have thus been labelled "false flag operations".
False flag operations are covert operations conducted by governments, corporations or other organisations, which are designed to appear as if they were carried out by other entities than the ones really responsible. The name is derived from the military concept of flying false colours, which was practised in both naval and land warfare. A famous example is Operation Greif, led by the Nazi commando Otto Skorzeny, in which he ordered his men into action in American uniforms during the final stages of World War II.
In March 2001, Gladio agent Vincenzo Vinciguerra stated, in sworn testimony, "You had to attack civilians, the people, women, children, innocent people, unknown people far removed from any political game. The reason was quite simple: to force ... the public to turn to the state to ask for greater security."

Cossiga's new revelations have appeared in Italy's oldest and most widely read newspaper, Corriere della Sera. In it, he states: "[Bin Laden supposedly confessed] to the al-Qaeda September 11 [attack] on the twin towers in New York, [claiming to be] the author of the attack, while all the [intelligence services] of America and Europe ... now know that the disastrous attack has been planned and executed by the CIA and the [Israeli intelligence service] Mossad, with the aid of the Zionist world in order to put the Arab countries under accusation and in order to induce the western powers to take part ... in Iraq [and] Afghanistan."
The former president first expressed his doubts about 9/11 in 2001, and is quoted in Webster Tarpley's 2004 book as stating that "The mastermind of the attack must have been a 'sophisticated mind, provided with ample means not only to recruit fanatic kamikazes, but also highly specialized personnel. I add one thing: it could not be accomplished without infiltrations in the radar and flight security personnel.'"

Coming from a respected former head of state, Cossiga's assertion that the 9/11 attacks were an inside job and that this is common knowledge amongst intelligence agencies, is a major endorsement for the "conspiracy theories" that are currently doing the rounds about 9/11. A majority of these theories not only argue there has been a massive cover-up and a rush to judgment, but that, in fact, the operation was mounted by sections of the American government itself - thus echoing largely what Cossiga is arguing for.
Still, there is substantial evidence that an attack was being planned on the United States before 9/11. The question should therefore be whether the actual execution of 9/11 was a state-sponsored, false flag "pre-emptive strike", whereby the inevitable was executed under more controlled conditions. Furthermore, though Cossiga is a highly respectable source, and the 9/11 Commission definitely should not be accorded the final, absolute say in this matter, he is nevertheless merely reporting on rumours and hearsay that circulated within the intelligence communities - which doesn't necessarily have to be correct.

The planned, but never executed, 1962 Operation Northwoods plot by the US administration for a war with Cuba involved scenarios such as hijacking a civilian passenger plane and blaming it on Cuba (though in this scenario, no US citizens would die, as only military personnel would board the plane as civilians and the plane would later be substituted by a drone). In 1999, the Russian state, specifically the security service, planted bombs in people's apartments in an effort to blame Chechen rebels and to restart a war and again invade Chechnya. Dare we ask whether 9/11 followed the scenario of 9/99, whereby sections of the US intelligence agencies planted bombs and carried out terrorist attacks, killing 2,973 civilians, in an effort to blame Islamist fundamentalists and to start wars by invading Afghanistan and Iraq?
If 9/11 eventually turns out to be proved as state-sponsored terrorist acts, we should equally note that it took Italy 15 years before such conclusions were reached for their own internal atrocities.