Washington ? Political connections and campaign donations have played a role in Bush administration awards of contracts to U.S. companies for work in Iraq and Afghanistan, a watchdog group alleged Thursday.

“There is a stench of political favoritism and cronyism surrounding the contracting process in both Iraq and Afghanistan,” Charles Lewis, director of the Center for Public Integrity, declared in releasing a study of about $8 billion in contracts won by more than 70 companies and individuals.

Government and industry spokesmen denied the accusation.

“I don’t think anybody who has ever applied for a contract ever puts down what political candidate they contributed to,” said Bob Faletti, spokesman for Southwestern Division of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, one agency that lets contracts in Iraq.

“We don’t maintain lists and we don’t get calls from the White House,” Faletti said. “What we look at is, can they get the job done and what is their past performance record?”

Halliburton Co. and others on a list of those with contracts for reconstruction and security in Iran and Afghanistan have been large political contributors, mostly to Republican candidates, Lewis said.

Many of the companies also have former employees who are government officials or board members who formerly held government jobs, said Lewis, whose nonprofit group monitors government and political ethics.

“Those companies contributed more money to the presidential campaign of George W. Bush — over $500,000 — than to any other politician over the last dozen years,” Lewis added.

Government and company spokesmen said political contributions and connections played no role in decisions by various agencies to award the contracts for work in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“All of our contracting is done in full compliance with the Federal Acquisition Regulations,” said Ellen Yount, spokeswoman for the U.S. Agency for International Development. “Our contracts were awarded after evaluations by career civil servants, not political appointees.”

There are “very strict firewalls set up” to prevent political appointees from influencing contract awards, Yount added, and a review by USAID’s inspector general found that all Iraq contracts to date had been let in compliance with federal regulations.

A spokeswoman for Houston-based Halliburton Co., which Lewis singled out for criticism because Vice President Dick Cheney formerly led the oil services giant and it received a $1.6 billion no-bid contract in Iraq, said the firm was selected “on its merits.”

“Because of our extensive experience and uniquely qualified work force, Halliburton is one of the few companies in the world that can do the emergency restoration efforts in Iraq,” spokeswoman Wendy Hall said in a statement.

Halliburton’s Kellog, Brown & Root subsidiary has gotten more than $2.3 billion in contracts in Iraq and Afghanistan to repair the Iraqi oil industry and provide logistical support to the U.S. Army, the center study said.

Of that amount, $1.6 billion was a no-bid contract KBR was given in March, days after the war in Iraq began, in a deal that provoked widespread criticism.

Corps spokesman Faletti said the contract was given to KBR without a competitive bidding process because part of the work “was to secretly train military personnel how to shut down oil facilities.”

Prior to the war, one of the greatest fears of U.S. military planners was that Iraqi troops would set fire to the nation’s oil fields, causing massive economic and environmental damage — as they did in Kuwait when U.S. troops drove them out of that country in 1991.

Faced with criticism of the no-bid award, however, the Corps said in June it would replace the KBR contract with two competitive awards to repair the oil industry in southern and northern Iraq.

The Corps said this week that it was delaying by 30 to 60 days the awarding of those contracts — so-called “indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity” deals, meaning the extent of the work has yet to be set.

The Center for Public Integrity’s study, based on data gathered in numerous Freedom of Information Act requests, examined 71 contracts for work in Afghanistan and Iraq awarded over the past two years by the Pentagon, the State Department and USAID.

Among the center’s findings were that:

â Between 1990 and 2002, the top 10 companies that won contracts in Afghanistan and Iraq have donated $11 million to political parties, candidates and political action committees.

â Fourteen of the dozens of companies on the list were awarded contracts in both Iraq and Afghanistan. The same companies accounted for more than $23 million in political donations over 12 years.

â Those contributions went mainly to the Republican Party and its candidates — $12.7 million, compared to $7.1 million donated to Democrats.