After 2003, the flow of federal dollars toward the Southeast Louisiana Urban Flood Control Project dropped to a trickle. The Corps never tried to hide the fact that the spending pressures of the war in Iraq, as well as homeland security  coming at the same time as federal tax cuts  was the reason for the strain. At least nine articles in the Times-Picayune from 2004 and 2005 specifically cite the cost of Iraq as a reason for the lack of hurricane- and flood-control dollars.