Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Thursday he expects the insurgents and terrorists in Iraq to accelerate their bombings and other attacks this summer before Gen. David Petraeus reports to Washington on whether he thinks the new U.S. strategy for securing Baghdad is working.
At a Pentagon news conference, Gates indicated that he believed the insurgents would step up the violence as a way of influencing decisions in Washington about whether and when to reduce U.S. forces in Iraq.
Petraeus' report, due in September, will be his first comprehensive assessment of the Baghdad plan since he took command in February.
"We are dealing with a smart, agile, thinking enemy," Gates said. "They are technologically sophisticated and therefore they know what's going on in this country. We should be prepared for them to make a very strong effort to increase the level of violence in July and August. My hope is that anticipating it will allow us to thwart it."
The Petraeus report is seen as a potentially decisive moment in the war, possibly leading to decisions on whether to continue the current higher levels of U.S. forces on the ground or to begin a phased withdrawal.
Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, appearing with Gates, said that attempts by the insurgents to target the events of September "would make sense from their standpoint," since they know that Washington can be influenced by changes in the level of violence in Iraq.
President Bush, in a White House news conference earlier Thursday, made a similar point. He acknowledged that the September reporting date gives the insurgents a U.S. decision-making juncture to try to influence through violence.
"It could make August a tough month, because, you see, what they're going to try to do is kill as many innocent people as they can to try to influence the debate here at home.," Bush said.