The NRA had been successful in its war, and its senior military officers held key political positions in the NRM. It was reduced in size under pressure from donors, unwilling to fund either an outsize army or civil service. Between 1990 and 1996 the army was reduced from 100,000 to 40,000, and the civil service from 320,000 to 156,000. Yet the defence budget rose from $44 million in 1991 as far as $200 million in 2004. Somerville ascribes the budget rise to the rebellion in the north, Uganda's military intervention in the Congo, and "massive corruption" - 'ghost soldiers' who did not exist, whose (real) salaries were claimed by senior officers.