By Gregory Korte
Enquirer staff writer

On the eve of a major speech on foreign policy here today, Democratic presidential hopeful John Kerry arrived in Cincinnati on Tuesday promising that the deaths of 999 American troops in Iraq "will not be in vain."

STATEMENT

Sen. John F. Kerry's statement on American casualties in Iraq at the Greater Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport Tuesday: "Today marks a tragic milestone in the war in Iraq. More than 1,000 of America's sons and daughters have now given their lives on behalf of their country, on behalf of freedom, the war on terror. "I think that the first thing that every American wants to say today is how deeply we each feel the loss, how much this means to all of us as Americans, the sacrifice that we feel on a very personal level. "And we are determined that as a nation we will always remember it, we will always stand up and fight for what they have fought for and their sacrifice will not be in vain. We are committed to making the right decisions in Iraq and the right decisions for them here at home, and that is the way that we will honor their sacrifice."

"We are committed to making the right decisions in Iraq and the right decisions for them here at home, and that is the way that we will honor their sacrifice," Kerry said in a statement on arrival at Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport on Tuesday. He did not take questions.

Kerry has stepped up his attacks on Bush's handling of the Iraq war since the end of the Republican National Convention last week, calling the invasion "the wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time." He has promised to withdraw from Iraq completely in his first term.

Today's speech, in the rotunda of the Cincinnati Museum Center at Union Terminal, comes one month shy of two years since President Bush made the case against Saddam Hussein's regime at the same place.

Like Bush's speech, Kerry's address will be delivered to a polite - if not supportive - crowd.

The Kerry campaign distributed 600 tickets to the event through Democratic Party leaders and elected officials - slightly smaller than the crowd of 800 invited by the Republican Party and the Greater Cincinnati Chamber of Commerce for Bush's 2002 speech.

Though Kerry will speak at almost precisely the same spot as Bush did, the challenger will have a smaller stage - literally, if not figuratively, a Museum Center spokesman said. The Museum Center itself - including the Omnimax Theater - will be closed to the public until 1 p.m. today.

Staying overnight at the Westin Cincinnati Hotel, campaign aides said Kerry was holed up at the hotel working on his speech Tuesday night.

The Massachusetts senator has no other public events scheduled in Cincinnati today before departing for Rochester, N.Y., this afternoon.

Eric Davis of Anderson Twp. greets Senator Kerry at CVG airport. (Enquirer photo/ERNEST COLEMAN)

Vice President Dick Cheney and his wife, Lynne - a former chairwoman of the National Endowment for the Humanities - will hold a town hall meeting Thursday at the Sabin Cincinnati Convention Center.

The Bush campaign said Cheney's visit wasn't in direct rebuttal to Kerry's speech today, but would include a discussion of "what we're doing in Iraq and why it's important," said campaign spokesman Kevin Madden.

Bush himself visits Ohio on Friday, with campaign stops in Portsmouth and Chillicothe.

As is his custom, Kerry met with a group of veterans on his arrival at the airport Tuesday. Leading the delegation were Tim Steineman of Logan County, the state coordinator of Ohio Veterans for Kerry, and Bobbie Sterne, an Army nurse during World War II and the former Charterite Cincinnati mayor.

"He said, 'Thank you for serving,' " Sterne recounted afterward. "And I said, 'Thank you for running.' And that was about it."

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E-mail gkorte@enquirer.com