September 25, 2003	Thursday	Rajab 27, 1424

WASHINGTON, Sept 24: Democrats in the US Congress called on Tuesday for hearings into the rapidly rising value of no-bid contracts awarded to energy giant Halliburton for its work on the reconstruction of Iraq.

Senators Frank Lautenberg and Joseph Lieberman wrote in a letter to Susan Collins, Republican chairwoman of the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee, that Halliburton — an oil services company formerly headed by Vice President Dick Cheney — has earned some two billion dollars for its work in Iraq. The figure is much higher than estimates made immediately after the war.

The lawmakers, who said the value of the contracts escalate daily, called for hearings to “examine the details surrounding these secretive contracting procedures”.

Among the contracts awarded to Halliburton is one from the US Army Corps of Engineers to rehabilitate Iraq’s oil fields which has ballooned to some 1.25 billion dollars, up from 700 million dollars just a few weeks ago, wrote Lautenberg and Lieberman, top Democrat on the Committee and a candidate for the White House.

The rapidly rising costs are particular troublesome as White House seeks tens of billions of dollars from Congress for Iraq’s continued reconstruction, the lawmakers said, because the closed-door bidding process encourages “favouritism and collusion”.

“Halliburton billed the American people 300 million dollars over one weekend,” said Lautenberg, a New Jersey Democrat, in a separate statement.

“Congress has the responsibility to look into this immediately before more taxpayer money is placed in Halliburton’s bank accounts,” Lautenberg said.

Cheney said on Sept 14 that he played no role in awarding the lucrative Iraq contracts to Halliburton, and dismissed charges of favouritism as “political cheap shots”.

“Since I left Halliburton to become George Bush’s vice president I severed all my ties with the company, got rid of all my financial interest,” Cheney said in an interview with NBC television’s Meet the Press.—AFP