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Excess billing for postwar fuel imports to Iraq by the Halliburton Company totaled more than $108 million, according to a report by Pentagon auditors that was completed last fall but has never been officially released to the public or to Congress.

In one case, according to the report, the company claimed that it had paid more than $27 million to transport liquefied petroleum gas [Ed: LPG - cooking and heating fuel] it had purchased in Kuwait for just $82,000 - a fee the auditors tartly dismissed as "illogical."

The fuels report, by the Defense Contract Audit Agency, was one of nine audits involving a subsidiary of Halliburton, Kellogg, Brown & Root, that were completed in October 2004, in the month before the American presidential elections. But the administration has kept all of them confidential despite repeated requests from both Republican and Democratic members of Congress.

Excerpts were released yesterday by the office of Representative Henry A. Waxman of California, minority leader of the House Committee on Government Reform, which said it had obtained the audit through "unofficial channels."

[...]

The auditor's questioning of a $27 million delivery bill for fuel worth $82,000 is misleading, said Ms. Hall, the Halliburton spokeswoman. Insurgent attacks on convoys, a local shortage of trucks and delays by military escorts all worked to raise the costs of fuel delivery, she said.
  NY Times article

In a letter to President Bush Monday, Waxman and Dingell complained that Pentagon officials had repeatedly ignored their requests to see copies of the Pentagon audits.

"Indeed, when Government Reform Committee staff indicated that they were considering issuing a subpoena for the audit reports, a Defense Department official replied that issuing a subpoena will not get the material released any faster," the lawmakers wrote.
  Houston Chronicle article