In a statement released last week, Grand Rapids and West Michigan Congressman Vern Ehlers admitted that "tens of thousands" of Iraqi civilians have been killed since the March 2003 invasion. The statement was issued in response to President George W. Bush's speech announcing his plans to escalate the war in Iraq by sending an additional 22,000 United States troops to the country. Representative Ehlers, who two weeks ago claimed that his vote in favor of the Iraq War was a mistake, neither opposed nor supported President Bush's plan. Ehlers acknowledged the "lack of success that we [the United States] have seen so far in Iraq" but spoke only of being sure that "the plan will work" rather than raising questions about the need to deploy more troops to the country. Ehlers also stated that he wanted to insure that the casualties suffered thus far in the war by United States soldiers and Iraqi civilians "were not suffered in vain." The speech is notable in that while Ehlers referenced the "tens of thousands" of civilians killed in Iraq, he assigned no responsibility for these deaths and indeed downplayed the total number of civilian deaths as recent estimates have put the number of civilians killed at 655,000 with the United States bearing direct responsibility for the deaths due to its military actions or its destruction of Iraqi society. A careful reading of Ehlers' statement makes it clear that he continues to support the occupation of Iraq, as he speaks of "our task in Iraq" and makes no mention of either withdrawing United States troops or ceasing his support of the war.

According to the Occupation Project, a campaign to target Congressional representatives and Senators who have supported the Iraq War, Representative Vernon Ehlers supported the war initially in 2002 and has supported all supplemental funding requests.