The dumbest people I ever met professionally were civil servants in the US Air Force and the US Navy. They were really dumb and hindered the mission. One time I was assigned to a 450-person program to design a certain missile. The feds couldn't just pay us and get on with it. They had to impose a micromanagement cost control system that had nothing to do with reality. So we had 122 people "controlling the costs." The USAF probably had that many people reading the meaningless reports we submitted.
I could cite many other stories. During the first Gulf War, I was amazed that any of our planes actually got into the air.
