I'm sure most of our readers have never heard of RTI International, but they've been given a contract by the U.S. government to help democratize Iraqi towns.

First, their plan isn't to follow the traditional "one person, one vote" model. Take, for instance, the elections in Mosul, held in May of 2003. The 18 seats on the city council were chosen by only 200 local leaders; no one else had any say in who was appointed. Oh, and the military had to approve.

We've already reported on how the Iraqi medical infrastructure has been horribly mismanaged, and there're plenty of article around about Halliburton's waste, and now we have another company on the list. RTI has spent only 10% of the money they were alloted on actually doing anything in Iraq. The other 90% (or $139 million) has been spent on administrative costs, especially staff.

"It was all fluff. We weren't really doing anything for the local organizations," so says Jerry Kuhaida, the former mayor of Oak Ridge, TN, who was put in charge of 4 of Iraq's 18 governorates centered around Karbala in the southeast.

The company itself all but confirmed the misallotment: "The original LGP (local governance program) budget had $10 million allocated for grants to support local projects. The grant program was so successful that LGP, with USAID approval, reallocated budgeted funds to administer more grants. To date, nearly $15 million worth of grant-funded projects have been approved, and almost all are completed or nearing completion." That from an RTI spokesperson. However, the $15 million mentioned is only 10% of the $154 million payed out to RTI during the first year (that total is now at $236 million).

Another former employee puts the blame instead on the oppressive oversight of occupation authorities. Jim Beaulieu was assigned to help the governor of Najaf. The governor, however, was given, "no money, no authority over anything other than their own offices, and no support staff. They were just a shell. They were trying hard to do things, but how can you do anything without money or authority?"

Both men finally quit last spring. "I resigned because it became obvious we could not do what we were hired to do," said Beaulieu.

While some of this information is moot now that power has been handed over (sort of), it does fit in with the trend of mismanagment and waste that is becoming increasingly common in stories about Iraq. Millions have been wasted already, and the government's showing no signs of attempting to curb the corruption, with the American taxpayer and the Iraqi citizen left to foot the bill.