Is the White House about to lay a time bomb?

In an effort to not portray Iraq as a complete failure today, the NYTimes reports that the White House is going to try and emphasize the statistics that are currently trending to support their argument. Over the last month or two, death squad killings are down from a peak, car bombings are down from a peak, etc.

However, after hearing for so long how militants in Iraq conduct "spectaculars" just to get on the news and influence policy, isn't this emphasis on the number of bodies almost a guarantee that we'll see a surge in violence?

Many times, this administration has said that emphasizing the violence just causes more attacks. Isn't the same true here?