Found this Great ‘Cherokee’ story at andwelove.com, who’s author found it on someone’s facebook page. Read it, it is the truth.

Found this quote at andwelove.com, here:

“One evening an old Cherokee told his grandson about a battle that goes on inside people. He said, “My son, the battle is between 2 wolves.

One is Evil.
It is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.

The other is Good.
It is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith.”

The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather, “Which wolf wins?”

The old Cherokee simply replied, “The one you feed.”

U.S. Supreme Court “eases up” on big oil, shrinks Exxon Valdez Oil Spill damages ordered by lower court from $2.5 Billion to $500 million

Dreaming of the America that put ‘PEOPLE BEFORE PROFITS….’

The following is an article found here, it was written by by Ned Turner at abcnews.go.com:

“While the Supreme Court agreed that ExxonMobil should be punished for the worst oil spill in U.S. history, it decided that the original fine was far too much, under existing shipping laws.

In a 5-3 decision the court reduced punitive damages in the case from $2.5 billion to $500 million, which means each of the people who joined the original suit against the oil company will receive an average of $15,000. Thirty-three thousand Alaskans had joined together, suing ExxonMobil to punish it for its negligence in the accident. Six thousand of them have died since the Exxon Valdez ran aground in Prince William Sound, Alaska, on March 24, 1989.

“A penality should be resonably predicatable in its severity,” wrote Justice David Souter for the 5-3 majority. Justice Samuel Alito, who owns ExxonMobil stock, did not take part in the case.”

Sunnis, Shiites, Karbala and Baghdad explained, why people will continue to die there…

This is an excerpt from an article by Scott Ritter, a former Marine intelligence officer, served as a chief weapons inspector for the United Nations in Iraq from 1991 to 1998. He is the author, most recently, of “Target Iran: The Truth About the White House’s Plans for Regime Change” ::

“…So here is the quiz: Explain the relationship between the Iraqi cities of Karbala and Baghdad as they impact the coexistence of Iraq’s Shiite and Sunni populations.

Most respondents who have a basic understanding of Iraq will answer that Karbala is a city of significance to Iraq’s Shiite population. Baghdad is Iraq’s capital, with a mixed Sunni and Shiite population. If that is your answer, you fail.

Karbala is a holy city for the Shiites. Its status as such is based on the fact that Hussein, a grandson of the prophet Muhammad and son of Ali, the fourth caliph, was killed outside Karbala in a battle between Hussein’s followers and forces loyal to Yazid, son of Muawiyah, the fifth caliph. The two sides were fighting over the line of succession when it came to leading the Muslim faithful after the death of Muhammad in the year 632. Abu Bakr, a close colleague of Muhammad but not a member of Muhammad’s biological family, was elected as the first caliph after the prophet’s death, an act that many Muslims believed broke faith with a necessity for the successor of Muhammad to be from his family. Abu Bakr’s death brought about a quick succession of caliphs, all of whom met untimely deaths and none of whom were from the family line of Muhammad.

When Ali was elected as the fourth caliph, many Muslims believed that for the first time since the death of Muhammad the caliphate had been restored to one properly authorized in the eyes of God to lead the Muslim faith. In fact, upon Ali’s accession as caliph, one of his first acts was to seek to restore the Muslim faith to its puritanical origins, which Ali believed had been departed from by the merchant families closely allied with the third caliph, Othman. Ali’s efforts were bitterly resisted by merchant families in Damascus, which refused to recognize Ali as the caliph. The head of the Damascus rebels, Muawiyah, fought a bitter conflict with Ali, which weakened the caliphate and paved the way for Ali’s assassination.

Upon Ali’s death, the caliphate was transferred to his elder son, Hassan, but when this succession was challenged by Muawiyah, Hassan relented, transferring the caliphate to Muawiyah with the caveat that once Muawiyah died, the caliphate would be returned to the lineage of the prophet Muhammad. When Muawiyah died, the caliphate passed to his son, Yazid. This succession was challenged by Hussein, Hassan’s brother and Ali’s younger son, who believed that the succession, as dictated by Hassan when he abdicated, should have gone to someone within the direct line of the prophet Muhammad, namely Hussein. Yazid’s treacherous attack on Hussein and his followers, occurring as it did during prayer time, set the stage for the split in the Muslim faith between the Shiat Ali (Shia, or followers of Ali) and the Ahl-i Sunnah (Sunni, or the people who follow in the custom of the prophet Muhammad). Both Shiite and Sunni view one another as deviants from the pure form of Islam as taught by Muhammad, and as such functioning as apostates deserving death.

If you answered the quiz on Karbala in the above fashion, you would still be wrong. The split between Sunni and Shiite goes beyond simple hatred for one another. Not only did the religion split, but so too did the methodology of governance as well as the interrelationship between religion and politics.

There was a final chance at achieving unity within the Muslim world. In the year 750, at the battle of Zab in Egypt, nearly the entire aristocracy formed from the lineage of Muawiyah was annihilated when the Damascus-based caliphate clashed with predominantly Shiite rebels. Jaffar, a Shiite spiritual leader and the great-grandson of Hussein, was supposed to be elevated to the caliphate, thereby uniting the Muslim world, but was instead murdered by Al-Mansur, who established the Abbasid caliphate in Baghdad. This final treachery created a permanent split between the Shiites and those who became known as Sunnis.

The Shiite faithful embraced rule by imams, infallible leaders who provide guidance over spiritual and political affairs. According to the majority of Shiites, there are 12 imams, originating with Ali. The 12th imam, also named Muhammad, is believed by many Shiites to be the Mahdi, or savior, who went into hiding at God’s command and will return at the end of days to bring salvation to the faithful. With the passing of the 12th imam, matters of spiritual and political concerns were dealt with by religious scholars, or the ulema. These scholars are products of religious academies, known as “hawza.” In Iraq, the city of Najaf is home to the most important hawza, the Hawza Ilmiya. Each hawza produces religious scholars, or “marjas,” who interpret religion and provide guidance over social matters to those who rally around their particular teachings.

The Najaf Hawza currently has four marjas, or grand ayatollahs, each of whom reigns supreme when it comes to matters of religion or state. The faithful look to their hawza for guidance in all they do, and the sermons given by the various marjas take on a significance little understood by those who aren’t born and bred into that society. To speak of creating a unified Iraqi state without factoring in the reality of the hawza and its competing marjas is tantamount to claiming one will seek to fly without factoring in the realities of lift and gravity.

So if you answered the question concerning the city of Karbala with anything remotely resembling an insight into not only the schism that exists between the Sunni and the Shiite but also how the development of the practice of the Shiite faith has led to an absolute insinuation of religious dogma into every aspect of social and political life in a manner that operates independently of any so-called central state authority, you would get a passing grade, enabling you to move on to the next city covered by the pop quiz: Baghdad….

It is not only the Shiites who are bound by religious ties seemingly indecipherable to the West. From the chaos that was created with the Islamic schism came a very fluid situation in the development of Sunni Islamic dogma, with the Sunnis embracing a notion of consensus among the historical Muslim community, a line of thinking that led to the creation of four so-called legal schools of Islamic thought (the Maliki, the Hannafi, the Hanbali and the Shafi’i). These schools produced Islamic scholars who in turn competed for a constituency of followers. While in theory Sunni scholars preached adherence to the customs of the prophet Muhammad, in practice the Sunni schools became intertwined in the affairs of state and business. This deviation from the pure practice of faith led to the growth of “mystic societies” known as Sufism. Sufi brotherhoods sprang up throughout the Muslim world, each preaching its own mystical path toward achieving personal growth through the teachings of the prophet Muhammad.

The Abbasid caliphate, which oversaw this period of religious “softening,” in which the pure practice of Islam gave way to a more secular tolerance of the baser concerns of man, was centered in Baghdad. It was the fall of Baghdad to the Mongols in 1258 that signaled not only the end of the Abbasid caliph’s rule but the certification in the eyes of some Sunni faithful that Abbasid’s ruin was brought about by the lack of pure faith in Islam by those professing to be Muslim. One of the basic tenants of the Sunni faith was the notion of community consensus, or “taqlid.” Taqlid was actively practiced by three of the four “legal” schools of Sunni thought. The sole exception was the school of the Hanbali, which followed a stricter interpretation of the faith. A Hanbali religious jurist, Ibn Taymiya, rose to prominence in the aftermath of the Mongol invasion. He held not only that the Mongols were an enemy of Islam but that the Shiite Islamic state that emerged in Persia after the Mongol conquest was likewise anathema.

More important, Ibn Taymiya broke ranks with the rest of the Sunni community, especially those who practiced Sufism, declaring all to be an affront to God. Ibn Taymiya rejected the notion of community consensus represented in the taqlid and instead professed that a true Muslim state could exist only where the political leader governed as a partner with the religious leader, and was subordinated to the religious through strict adherence to the “sharia,” or religious law. The Muslim jurists, or “ulema,” held total sway over society, to the extent that even matters pertaining to war were reserved for the religious leader, or imam, who was the only person authorized to declare a jihad.

During the Abbysid caliph, the term jihad had taken on the connotation of inner struggle. This interpretation gained wide acceptance with the spread of the Sufi brotherhoods, which were all about inner discovery. Ibn Taymiya rejected this notion of jihad, instead proclaiming that true jihad involved a relentless struggle against the enemies of Islam. For a while his teachings were popular, especially when they were being used to encourage the forces of Sunni Islam confronting the infidel Mongol invaders. However, his strict interpretation of Hanbali tenets were rejected even by other Hanbali religious scholars, and Ibn Taymiya himself was branded a heretic.

The teachings of Ibn Taymiya continued to be taught in certain Hanbali circles, including those operating in the holy city of Medina. It was here, in the 18th century, that a Arab Bedouin from the Nejd desert, in what is today Saudi Arabia, named Muhammed al-Wahhab emerged to create a movement that not only embraced the teachings of Ibn Taymiya but took them even further, preaching a virulent form of Islam that claimed to seek to bring the faithful back to the religion as practiced by the prophet Muhammad himself. Wahhab’s movement, known as the Call to Unity, reflected his strict interpretation of Islam as set forth in his book Kitab al-Tawhid, or the Book of Unity.

At first Wahhab was rejected by the Sunni scholars, and he was hounded and finally forced to take refuge in the tiny village of Dariya. There Wahhab befriended the local governor, Muhammed Ibn Saud, initiating what was to become a partnership in which the Saud family took on the role of emir, or political leader, while Wahhab became imam, or religious leader. The team of Bedouin warrior and Islamic fanatic soon led to what would become known as the Wahhabi conquest, bringing much of what is now present-day Saudi Arabia under their strict religious rule. In 1802 a Wahhabi army attacked Karbala and sacked the sacred Shiite shrine to Hussein. In 1803 the Wahhabis sacked Mecca, laying waste to the most holy sites in the Islamic world, including the Great Mosque. In 1804 the Wahhabis captured Medina, looted the tomb of the prophet Muhammad and shut off the hajj, or pilgrimage, to all non-Wahhabis. The rise of the Wahhabi empire was seen as a threat to all Islam, and soon a massive counterattack was mounted by the caliphate in Egypt. By 1818 the Wahhabis had been destroyed in battle, and everyone professing Wahhabism was treated as an apostate and butchered. The head of the Saud tribe was captured and beheaded, along with many of his fellow tribesmen.

Deep in the Arab deserts, a small number of Saudi tribesmen, strict adherents to Wahhabism, survived the Egyptian onslaught and began the struggle to regain their lost power. By 1924 the Wahhabis once again controlled Mecca and Medina, and by 1932 a new nation, Saudi Arabia, emerged from the Arabian deserts, governed by the house of Saud and with religious affairs totally in the hands of the Wahhabis.

To the Wahhabis of Saudi Arabia there were two great sources of religious heretics: the Shiites, who ruled in Iran and represented a majority population in several Arab nations, including Iraq, and worse still, the Sunni Arabs, who rejected the true path as represented by the teachings of Wahhab. The puritanical form of Islam pushed by the Wahhabis was difficult to export, however, until the oil crisis of 1973, after which the Saudi government was able to fund the printing of Wahhabi literature and training of Wahhabi missionaries. In Iraq, there was some attraction to the puritanical teachings of Wahhabism among the Bedouin of the western deserts. However, with the rise to power of Saddam Hussein, Wahhabism and those who proselytized in its name were treated as enemies of the state. Wahhabism was still practiced in the shadows of Sunni mosques throughout Iraq, but anyone caught doing so was immediately arrested and put to death.

Wahhabi concerns over the weakening of the Muslim world by those who practiced anything other than pure Islam were certified in the minds of the faithful when, in April 2003, American soldiers captured Baghdad in what many Wahhabis viewed as a repeat of the sack of the city at the hands of the Mongols in 1258. Adding insult to injury, the role of Iraq’s Shiites in aiding and abetting the American conquest was seen as proof positive that the only salvation for the faithful could come at the hands of a pure form of the Islamic faith, that of Wahhabism. As the American liberation dragged on into the American occupation, and the level of violence between the Shiites and Sunnis grew, the call of jihad as promulgated by the Wahhabis gained increasing credence among the tribes of western Iraq.

The longer the Americans remain in Iraq, the more violence the Americans bring down on Iraq, and the more the Americans are seen as facilitating the persecution of the Sunnis by the Shiites, the more legitimate the call of the Wahhabi fanatics become. While American strategists may speak of the rise of al-Qaida in Iraq, this is misrecognition of what is really happening. Rather than foreigners arriving and spreading Wahhabism in Iraq, the virulent sect of Islamic fundamentalism is spreading on its own volition, assisted by the incompetence and brutality of an American occupation completely ignorant of the reality of the land and people it occupies. This is the true significance of Baghdad, and any answer not reflecting this will be graded as failing.

A pop quiz, consisting of one question in two parts. Most readers might complain that it is not realistic to expect mainstream America to possess the knowledge necessary to achieve the level of comprehension required to pass this quiz. I agree. However, since the mission of the United States in Iraq has shifted from disarming Saddam to installing democracy to creating stability, I think it only fair that the American people be asked about those elements that are most relevant to the issue, namely the Shiite and Sunni faithful and how they interact with one another.

It is sadly misguided to believe that surging an additional 20,000 U.S. troops into Baghdad and western Iraq will even come close to redressing the issues raised in this article. And if you concur that the reality of Iraq is far too complicated to be understood by the average American, yet alone cured by the dispatch of additional troops, then we have a collective responsibility to ask what the hell we are doing in that country to begin with. If this doesn’t represent a clarion call for bringing our men and women home, nothing does.

Scott Ritter was a Marine Corps intelligence officer from 1984 to 1991 and a United Nations weapons inspector in Iraq from 1991 to 1998. He is the author of numerous books, including “Iraq Confidential” (Nation Books, 2005) and “Target Iran” (Nation Books, 2006).

Of God and Greed…

Found this article on Time.com (from 2001, concerning events of 1987), thought it was interesting:

“…Said Falwell: Bakker “needs to return the millions of dollars that have been taken from the coffers of this ministry at the cost of widows and supporters and people who have sacrificially built this Christian ministry.” At the press conference, Falwell waved a note that Tammy had jotted on her own stationery. She had given it to a PTL emissary who was sent last month to Palm Springs by Falwell to arrange a severance package. The note’s wish list: $300,000 a year for life to Jim; $100,000 a year for life to Tammy; all royalties and rights to their PTL-related books and records; the furnished $400,000 lakeside mansion in South Carolina that PTL had provided for the Bakkers’ personal use; two cars; security staffing; payments for attorneys to handle the Bakkers’ possible problems with the Internal Revenue Service; a maid and secretary for one year. Falwell thundered, “I see the greed. I see the self-centeredness. I see the avarice that brought them down.”

On Nightline, the Bakkers described the list as a starting point for bargaining, but it was apparent that they were not geared for a hardscrabble life. Jim estimated his 1986 salary at $1.1 million, while Tammy professed that she had no idea what she made. (By Falwell’s account, Jim got a salary of $1.6 million, and Tammy, $300,000, not counting perks.) Bakker, however, did admit to Koppel that “I think we’ve made a lot of mistakes, and I’m very sorry about it.”

The couple protested that the PTL board had urged the munificent sums upon them, and Koppel did not pursue the nature of Bakker’s control over the board. The Washington Post later reported that PTL board minutes, which could prove important in federal investigations, show that members often took no action on important money matters.

To underscore the Bakkers’ opulent life-style, the Falwell administration escorted journalists on tours of the couple’s private penthouse in PTL’s Heritage Grand Hotel. There they examined Tammy’s 50-ft. walk-in closet and the gold-plated plumbing fixtures. The lavish expenditures of the Bakkers were pointed up even further at a mammoth May 23 auction of the possessions acquired during the fat years of PTL. The auction served a second purpose, explained by a PTL aide: “Whatever we don’t need we are trying to convert to cash.”

No auction artifact better symbolized the excesses of Bakkerdom than the air-conditioned doghouse that Tammy had built at their lakeside home. Among the 1,000 bargain-hunting fans on hand at Fort Mill was a California contractor who bought the doghouse for $4,500, and then donated it back to PTL so it could be resold for $600, this time to a Pennsylvania railroad worker. Other notable transactions: $27,000 for a restored 1927 Franklin automobile, $10,500 for a 25-ft. boat. So mountainous is the miscellany that a second auction will be held on July 4.

The day’s $200,000 take, however, was piddling compared with the amounts of PTL cash the auditors have been trying to trace. Supporters had sent in $50 million to build an addition to the PTL hotel at Fort Mill — a project now in suspension — but only $11 million was allotted to construction. The Bakkers have drawn salaries and bonuses of $4.8 million since 1984; they and top aides also picked up $640,000 in unexplained cash advances. One Bakker friend, James Taggart, got $120,000 a year to decorate Tammy and Jim’s residences. Peter Teeley, Vice President George Bush’s former press secretary, received $120,000 as a consultant.

South Carolina last week was given $1 million in back taxes due from a PTL “Lifetime Partner” offer of three nights a year at the hotel to all who donated at least $1,000. Meanwhile, the state consumer-affairs office is checking out complaints from Lifetime Partners who have been refused promised hotel visits. The IRS is so intrigued by the flow of cash that it has opened a temporary field office at Heritage USA. Federal tax laws state that officials’ remuneration from nonprofit organizations must be “reasonable,” which might mean deep trouble for the Bakkers and their well-paid former executives.

The FBI and the Department of Justice are also on hand, and PTL Board Member Jerry Nims, for one, hopes for a full-dress fraud investigation. He charges that the local representative for PTL’s outside auditors, Laventhol & Horwath, operated a secret fund through which PTL higher-ups got enormous bonuses. Laventhol says it is unable to discuss the situation until PTL gives permission. In addition, says Nims, some PTL officials were observed pocketing cash from mail donations right off the counting table.

What are PTL’s prospects? Amazingly enough, attendance at Heritage USA is running 20% ahead of last year’s levels. At week’s end a banner at the entrance to the amusement park that had read MAY EMERGENCY had been altered to read MAY MIRACLE! The proclamation was the result of a surge of donations that enabled Falwell to raise the $7 million he said was needed by May 31. Now, however, another $20 million to $25 million within 90 days is being solicited by Falwell, who claims PTL requires that amount to consolidate its loans and pay 40 TV stations to which it owes $8 million. Survival depends on keeping the daily PTL show on its broadcast and cable systems so that money will continue to roll in. Belt tightening and staff cuts (including the Bakkers’ $45,000-a-year housekeeper) have dropped the monthly operating deficit from $2 million to $250,000.

Nonetheless, long-range prospects are at best uncertain. One looming threat ) emanates from a vocal group that wants to rally the 518,000 PTL Partners in order to oust Falwell. Like the Bakkers, these protesters are Pentecostals and Charismatics, believers in “gifts” of the Holy Spirit, such as healing and speaking in tongues. As a Fundamentalist Baptist, Falwell is doctrinally opposed to these practices, and the five-member PTL board he appointed has no Pentecostal representatives. The loudest of the anti-Falwell group is the Rev. Mike Evans of Fort Worth, who thinks the chastened Bakker “has every right to have the PTL back,” if he is not guilty of homosexual sins. Evans regards the homosexual charges as unproven. As for Falwell: “I think the guy is a skunk.”

On Nightline, Bakker, musing about a possible return to PTL, proposed to set up a new 25-member board to govern the organization. The notion of the Bakkers’ making a comeback might seem incredible, but supportive mail has poured in to the Palm Springs retreat. Some Pentecostals think Bakker could try to set up a clone of Heritage USA in California, or an independent Charismatic congregation somewhere. Indeed, one Chattanooga, Tenn., TV station has already offered to help Bakker launch a new gospel show. Says the Rev. Tommy Barnett, of the flourishing (15,000-member) Phoenix First Assembly of God: “I know the man has his drive and dreams, and you just don’t hold a man like that back.”

The scandal seems to have had a fallout effect on some other televangelists. Falwell admits that proceeds at various enterprises in Lynchburg were down $2 million in April; Jimmy Swaggart reports a $1.5 million decline for that month. The Rev. Robert Schuller of Garden Grove, Calif., whose popular Hour of Power is carried by 172 TV stations, shows a 3% dip in donations so far in 1987, but he does not consider that necessarily a result of the PTL scandal. The televangelist with the most to lose is the one with the biggest video operation, Republican Presidential Candidate Pat Robertson of the Christian Broadcasting Network. He briefly took time out from the campaign trail to report that April donations were down a perilous 33%. “We can’t just continue to have that sort of drain,” said the worried preacher.

It is not difficult to discern why many contributors are becoming edgy about secretive and sensationalistic televangelism empires. Asks McKendree R. Langley in Eternity, a respected evangelical news monthly: “Wouldn’t it be a step in the right direction for TV preachers to cut back on financial appeals, end outrageous claims of having direct pipelines to God, reaffirm by example the rightness of modest life-styles, demonstrate deeper biblical spirituality and articulate a Christian worldview?” That sound you hear is an army of embarrassed Christians shouting “Amen!”

FOOTNOTE: *The initials stand for Praise The Lord or People That Love, though mockers suggest other variations, such as Pass The Loot or Pay The Lady.

With reporting by Reported by Marcia Gauger and Joseph J. Kane/Fort Mill, with other bureaus”

New York Times reports U.S. government is splitting up KBR/Halliburton military contract monopoly in Iraq due to mismanagement and wasteful spending, rape, and electrocutions

Controversial Contractor’s Iraq Work Is Split Up

Found in New York Times:

By JAMES RISEN

Published: May 24, 2008

WASHINGTON — Sometime soon, a group of American corporate executives and military leaders will quietly sit down and divide Iraq into three parts.

Their meeting will not have anything to do with Iraq’s national sovereignty, but instead will involve slicing up billions of dollars in work for the defense contractors that support the American military’s presence in the country.

For the first time since the war began, the largest single Pentagon contract in Iraq is being divided among three companies, ending the monopoly held by KBR, the Houston-based corporation that has been accused of wasteful spending and mismanagement and of exploiting its political ties to Vice President Dick Cheney.

Yet even as the Pentagon begins to pull apart the enormous KBR contract, critics warn that the new three-company deal could actually result in higher costs for American taxpayers and weak oversight by the military. In fact, under the new deal, KBR and the two other companies could actually make more than three times as much as KBR has been paid each year since the war began.

Last month the Pentagon awarded the companies pieces of a new contract to provide food, shelter and basic services for American soldiers, a 10-year, $150 billion deal that stretches far beyond the final days of the Bush administration. KBR will still get a sizable chunk of the business, but now it will have to share the work with Fluor Corporation and DynCorp International.

Army officials and executives of the three companies are planning to meet in the next few weeks to start the complex process of breaking up KBR’s sprawling operations in Iraq.

KBR, previously a subsidiary of Halliburton, once headed by Mr. Cheney, has collected more than $24 billion since the war began. It has 40,000 employees in Iraq and 28,000 more in Afghanistan and Kuwait.

But KBR has come under fire from Congress and Pentagon auditors for complaints ranging from making more than $200 million in excessive charges, including meals never served to soldiers, to delivering unsafe water to American troops to doing little to prevent sexual assaults of its female employees, often by their KBR co-workers.

Army officials acknowledge that they were under intense pressure from Capitol Hill to give KBR some competition, yet leading Democratic lawmakers and other critics say the new contract will merely paper over the fundamental problems that stem from the Pentagon’s heavy dependence on outside contractors in Iraq.

“This is just another verse in the same old song,” said Senator Byron L. Dorgan, a Democrat from North Dakota who is one of the leading Congressional critics of KBR and other major defense contractors. “It appears to me that this is a broken process.”

Critics also say they doubt that the new contract will result in significant cost savings or better services for soldiers in Iraq. The Army has built into the deal the potential for larger profits for the contractors than existed under the prior contract, and it plans to outsource much of the management and oversight of the contractors to yet another company, Serco Inc., for $59 million.

“This new contract sounds good, they are splitting it up, but there are serious flaws, including what looks like outsourcing oversight,” said Dina Rasor, an investigator and co-author of a book about contracting in Iraq. “And the size of the contract is enormous. When you think of these big, multibillion-dollar defense contracts and contractors, you think of companies like Lockheed, and you can see their big airplane plants. But what is KBR doing for all this money? They are slinging hash, washing laundry.”

Army officials said that they would not be able to actually shift work from KBR to the other companies until late this year, meaning that the change would be under way just as Americans are choosing a new president. The Army officials said the huge new multiyear contract for Iraq would not commit any new presidential administration to paying billions of dollars to defense contractors for services in Iraq if the new president decided to withdraw American troops.

It is not clear how the Pentagon will try to untangle KBR’s operations in Iraq to share them with DynCorp and Fluor. Lee Thompson, the executive director of the Logistics Civil Augmentation Program, as the program is called, said the Army would first try to split work in Kuwait among the three companies, and would then move on to Afghanistan and Iraq.

Even if the United States remains in Iraq long term, the contract could ultimately cost much less than $150 billion over 10 years, Mr. Thompson said. But after being caught off guard by the scale of the spending at the start of the war, the Army is building in a cushion this time, he said.

Army officials have been working for two years to undo KBR’s monopoly on business in Iraq.