Washington ? A top Army Corps of Engineers official charged Monday that Halliburton Co. was able to receive no-bid contracts for work in Iraq because of repeated assistance by the office of the Secretary of Defense.

Bunnatine Greenhouse, a longtime senior procurement executive for the Corps of Engineers, made the accusation to Democratic members of Congress looking into allegations of war profiteering by the Texas oil services company.

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 Defense,” she said, referring to the acronym for the contract known as Rebuild Iraqi Oil. “That troubled me and was wrong.”

Democrats also released a report that added up findings from previously undisclosed Defense Department audits. Together, they show more than $1 billion in possible overcharges and $422 million in billing that lacked the kind of documentation the auditors needed to determine whether the charges were proper.

The vast scale goes well beyond previously released figures. In earlier public reports, auditors had identified about $400 million in questioned costs.