I recently spoke to one of the Army engineers who was involved in setting up many camps and facilities during this current Iraqi Campaign. Loosly quoted, he had this to say:
"You would not believe some of the things that took place. part was untrained personnel and uneducated local labor; more was direct command interference that prevented us from doing our jobs. We were not able to plan things properly because of last-minute desires of local area commanders; attempts to standardise things were futile. Often we had to provide utilities that were either way too big, or were way too small, because of interference by the local command. Adding to this was the efforts of some 'cost-plus' contractors to sell their 'upgrades' to local commands."