The administration of this has been terribly wrong in Iraq, at least where the US military is handling things. The military folks handling this stuff are soldiers, not contractors, and they evidently get no training in contract administration, etc. Lots of money is being handed out, and I suspect many of those dollars are going into funding the fight against us!
A few examples from what my brother found...
He received a request from a village for a wad-o-dough (your $$$ and mine) to paint their town building(s). My brother said it was a lot of money, and rather than give the cash, he could provide paint and brushes for them to do it (they were sitting around 'unemployed'). "Oh, no, they said...we need cash...we have to hire painters from another village, since we don't know how to paint..." My brother said that he'd show them himself how to paint, but suddenly the need for painting wasn't so urgent!“This is what we need in my country. These are things our own blacksmiths could make and our people can easily use and repair.”
He often received requests for funding on projects that we'd already funded multiple times. The Iraqis were intentionally sabotaging things so they could get the $$$ to do repairs. Rather than maintain something, they benefited more by abusing the infrastructure, since they would get more $$$.
Yes, that's a classic story that's often used as an example. If encountered it myself in some minor volunteer consulting I've done...I once spec'd out some low-maintenance pumps for a water-supply project in Africa, but found that they were replaced by higher-tech ones...nice equipment, but I knew it wouldn't last without trained maintenace folks. Why? Because the latter company was a sponsor of this. And I can't wholly fault the administrators for having to go where they were being given equipment, but it sure isn't the best situation.
Oh Gawd, you’re Nodrog, aren’t you? I thought I recognized that sanctimonious pseudo-intellectual tone. We got a TROLL of the first order here, freepers.
BTW, Nodrog, your example disproves you thesis, namely that soldiers cannot handle oversight of the small projects because they allegedly aren’t trained. First, seems the soldier did just fine at turning down bogus requests. Second, they are trained. The army trains its people on just about everything they do. Sheesh.