US: A top US Army Corps of Engineers official has alleged that Halliburton was able to receive no-bid contracts for work in Iraq because of repeated assistance by the office of the US secretary of defence.
Bunnatine Greenhouse, a long-standing senior procurement executive for the corps of engineers, made the accusation on Monday to Democratic members of Congress looking into allegations of war profiteering by the Texas oil services company that was formerly headed by vice-president Dick Cheney.
She called the multiple interventions "the most blatant and improper contract abuse I have witnessed during the course of my professional career".
"Essentially every aspect of the Rio contract remained under the control of the office of the secretary of defence," said Mrs Greenhouse, referring to the acronym for the contract known as Restore Iraq Oil. "That troubled me and was wrong."
Rio was just one of eight examples Democrats cited as "favourable treatment" for Halliburton since 2002.
Democrats also released a report that added up findings from previously undisclosed defence department audits. Together they show more than $1 billion (€828m) in possible overcharges and $422 million in billing which lacked the kind of documentation auditors needed to determine whether the charges were proper.
These figures are vastly greater than those previously released. In earlier public reports, auditors had identified about $400 million in costs that hadn't been accounted for.
A spokeswoman for the department of defence said on Monday that officials had not had time to examine the Democrats' report, which was released in the afternoon. "The department is committed to an integrated, well-managed contracting process in Iraq," Marine Corps Lieut Col Roseann Lynch said in an e-mail.
In a written statement, Cathy Gist-Mann of Halliburton called the alleged overcharges "a gross mischaracterisation" and des- cribed the hearing as politically motivated.
Possible excessive charges for the oil services contract have been released previously. But Monday's report described possible overcharges of $800 million on "logistical" services, such as food service and rubbish disposal, conducted in Iraq by KBR, a Halliburton subsidiary formerly known as Kellogg, Brown & Root.
Rory Mayberry, a former KBR food service manager, discussed some of the charges in a statement on video. He said the company had served troops food that was as much as a year past its use-by date, provided Turkish and Filipino workers with leftovers in rubbish bags rather than culturally appropriate food, and overcharged for 10,000 meals per day in order to make up for a financial sanction imposed by the Pentagon.
Mr Mayberry's claims could not be independently corroborated. "KBR's dining facilities are thoroughly inspected every month by the army's Preventive Medicine Services division, and one of the main things they check is the expiration dates on various products," wrote Ms Gist-Mann.
"If at any point food is deemed unfit to serve, KBR follows the government-approved processes and procedures to destroy it."
Senators questioned the Iraq oil contract, which Mrs Greenhouse said Halliburton should never have been offered due to the company's inside knowledge of the project budget.