Washington ? President Bush, seeking to capitalize on his wartime popularity, has launched a two-week White House offensive intended to show Americans that he is working to improve a sagging economy even while he oversees the rebuilding of Iraq.

The Pentagon on Monday said it expects no more major battles in Iraq, presenting Bush with the rapid finish to the shooting war that his political advisers had hoped for and freeing him to spend more time talking about the other major issue that could decide his re-election fortune: jobs.

Bush’s popularity ratings have climbed since the start of the war, but perhaps no other politician in America is as keenly aware that victory in Iraq and high popularity ratings can vanish in a year’s time if the economy doesn’t improve. It happened to Bush’s father, former President George Bush, in 1991, and the son’s political aides have vowed not to repeat that scenario.

White House officials are quick to disavow history and re-election politics as influences on Bush’s agenda or travel schedule, though planning for the two-week, 26-state blitz began about a month ago, or about the time Bush was getting ready to launch the Iraq invasion.

Bush officially launches the effort to sell his remedy for the lagging economy — $726 billion in additional tax cuts — with an economic speech today in the Rose Garden, taking advantage of the April 15 income-tax filing deadline that is likely to focus many Americans on their personal financial situation.

The bulk of the blitz, which is to be handled by Bush’s top aides, is timed to coincide with Congress’ spring recess and to hit the districts and states of lawmakers crucial to passage of the tax cuts while they are at home meeting with constituents, White House officials said. Twenty-five Cabinet officials and deputies are scheduled to do 57 events in 40 cities, many of them with Republican lawmakers up for re-election, and more events are being added, according to White House spokeswoman Claire Buchan.

To underscore Bush’s focus on domestic matters even while he was engaged by the war, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer cited the passage by the House in recent weeks of Bush priorities, including a ban on human cloning, limits on malpractice lawsuit awards and expanding oil and gas drilling.

Many economists and Democrats have complained that Bush’s proposed tax cuts are skewed to favor the rich and should focus more on “demand-side” tax cuts, such as a reduction in the payroll tax that would put more money into the pockets of low- to middle-income families more quickly.

But administration officials said the dividend tax cut and reductions in the income taxes paid by America’s richest taxpayers would help small-business owners who, once given more of their money to spend, will invest it in their businesses and ultimately create new jobs.