Halliburton, the Houston-based oil services company, may have overcharged the US government by $212m (£113m, €165m) for work in Iraq, according to portions of Pentagon audits released yesterday.

KBR, a subsidiary of Halliburton formerly run by Vice-President Dick Cheney, came under fire last year following allegations that it had overcharged the government $62m in "unreasonable costs" for importing fuel from Kuwait to Iraq.