Sometimes you have to wonder if the Bush administration is intentionally trying to botch the rebuilding efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan, because it's hard to fathom how so many people can be so collectively incompetent.

For example, why would you give a $300 million contract for supplying arms to Afghanistan to a "fledgling company led by a 22-year-old man whose vice president was a licensed masseur?" According to the New York Times, the U.S. has relied on just such a company, AEY Inc., since last year as the main supplier of munitions to Afghanistan's army and police forces.

Why might it be a bad idea to give that task to a 22-year-old? Look at the results:

The company has provided ammunition that is more than 40 years old and in decomposing packaging, according to an examination of the munitions by The New York Times and interviews with American and Afghan officials. Much of the ammunition comes from the aging stockpiles of the old Communist bloc, including stockpiles that the State Department and NATO have determined to be unreliable and obsolete, and have spent millions of dollars to have destroyed.

In purchasing munitions, the contractor has also worked with middlemen and a shell company on a federal list of entities suspected of illegal arms trafficking.

Moreover, tens of millions of the rifle and machine-gun cartridges were manufactured in China, making their procurement a possible violation of American law. The company’s president, Efraim E. Diveroli, was also secretly recorded in a conversation that suggested corruption in his company’s purchase of more than 100 million aging rounds in Albania, according to audio files of the conversation.

Recovery in Afghanistan depends on success in two areas: Rebuilding the country's infrastructure--I wrote yesterday about how this aid has been neglected by the international community--and establishing an Afghan security force that can prevent the Taliban from retaking control. It's been more than six years, and little progress has been made on either front.