WASHINGTON: US President George W. Bush and Congress should join Pentagon and State Department probes into allegations that construction giant Halliburton overcharged the US government for its work in Iraq to ensure accountability of other military contractors, watchdog groups here say.

Activists from the 'Campaign to Stop the War Profiteers', initiated by the North Carolina State-based Institute for Southern Studies and endorsed by 50 organizations across the United States, say adding the weight of the White House and Congress to the investigation could help guarantee that controversial contractors are accountable before the US public.

Activists say that dubious billing and procurement practices have raised questions about the quality of government oversight in Iraq and whether the Bush administration is sufficiently protecting the interests of US taxpayers.

From no-bid contracts with little supervision to manipulating gasoline prices, Halliburton, formerly run by Vice-President Dick Cheney, has largely come to embody the secretive nature of awarding contracts in post-war Iraq and accusations of hefty war profiteering.

"The scope of the scandals surrounding Halliburton and other military contractors demands a full congressional inquiry into the politics surrounding contract decisions and the performance of corporations that have been given billions of taxpayer dollars," said Chris Kromm, co-director of the campaign, in a statement.

The groups say that hundreds of millions of dollars are being wasted as a result of crooked conduct by contractors and sloppy government controls. Halliburton, the company that has been awarded the most lucrative contracts in Iraq, faces a number of investigations in the United States.

The Defence Department is probing the firm after an audit found it overcharged the US Army by 61 million dollars for gasoline transferred to Iraq as part of one deal, which was awarded without a bidding process.

Auditors at the Pentagon are also looking into the company's food contracts at more than 50 other locations, where it is said to have overcharged by 27.4 million dollars.

"A bipartisan, independent commission is needed to review the performance of contractors under existing contracts and (to) monitor the letting of sub-contracts," said Keith Ashdown, vice- president of policy at Taxpayers for Common Sense, a Washington- based group that monitors government spending.

The groups say they need more scrutiny of Halliburton because the Pentagon official in charge of the investigation, L. Jean Lewis, is known as a highly partisan Republican activist.

Lewis was roundly condemned for her ardent leadership of the Whitewater legal case against Bush's predecessor Bill Clinton for having an affair with a White House intern in the 1990s.

The calls for more oversight of Iraq contracts come as the New York-based World Policy Institute (WPI) issued an analysis on Wednesday that documents a fast rise in military contracts given to Halliburton and other US mega-companies as a result of the US invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan. The report says Washington's huge military and security budgets have proven a bonanza for the firms. -Dawn/The InterPress News Service.