Following is a letter to the editor sent Friday, Oct. 20, 2006, by BYU professor Steven Jones to the Deseret Morning News:

I stand firmly against the war in Iraq and any war of aggression.

I support scientific scrutiny of the events of 9/11/2001, a day which will live in infamy. I speak as a private citizen of the United States.

"In a democracy we can renounce war and proclaim peace. There is opportunity for dissent. Many have been speaking out and doing so emphatically. That is their privilege. That is their right, so long as they do so legally. ... We can give our opinions on the merits of the situation as we see it. ..." (LDS Church President Gordon B. Hinckley, LDS General Conference, April 6, 2003)

Wholeheartedly agreeing, I am exercising that right and that privilege. "A team of American and Iraqi public health researchers has estimated that 600,000 civilians have died in violence across Iraq since the 2003 American invasion" (New York Times, Oct. 11, 2006). I renounce these killings in the Middle Eastern wars.

We must insist on complete answers to questions about what really happened on Sept. 11, why there were no air defenses that day, and why we have gone to war in the Middle East. These issues transcend party politics. These yearnings for understanding of 9/11 and the wars that followed take us to the core of our heritage as Americans — I support the Constitution of the United States. I am very concerned about those elected officials who would engage in pre-emptive war rather than "common defense" to "repel invasions" (the Constitution's Article I), compromise our rights against torture and cruel punishments (8th Amendment), take away the right of habeas corpus (Article I), and diminish the freedom to speak out without fear of reprisals (1st Amendment).

Two structural engineering professors in Switzerland have recently spoken out as I have also done, declaring that explosives were with "utmost probability" responsible for the collapse of World Trade Center 7 on September 11. "WTC7 was with the utmost probability brought down by explosives," said one. (Tages-Anzeiger, Sept. 9, 2006)