The alert level was raised once in 2004, an election year, leading some critics to speculate that the Bush Administration used them for political rather than strictly security reasons. In 2009, Ridge alleged in his book "The Test of Our Times: America Under Siege ... and How We Can Be Safe Again" that top aides to President Bush (including defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld and attorney general John Ashcroft) pressured him to raise the alert level on the eve of the November 2004 presidential election. Ridge refused. "After that episode, I knew I had to follow through with my plans to leave the federal government for the private sector," he said.