By the beginning of 2004, it was clear that the hoped-for cakewalk in Iraq was anything but that. The Bush administration had run up record deficits, and at the same time, it was becoming clear that the Democrats vying for the White House were having trouble making their criticisms on either international or domestic policy stick. Such is the power of a wartime incumbency. Also in this period, seven new countries joined the NATO alliance, occupation authorities closed down Moqtada al-Sadr's newspaper, and donations to rebuild Afghanistan were clearly inadequate.