Democrat John Kerry charged President George W. Bush's administration today with rewarding politically connected companies with huge defense contracts and then "turning a blind eye to the massive overcharging and waste".
The Democratic presidential candidate proposed an overhaul of the way firms bid for lucrative government deals, saying the Bush administration favors old cronies like Halliburton, big political contributors and special interests in secret backroom deals that cost taxpayers billions of dollars.
"It's an abuse of the American taxpayer. It's an abuse of trust," he said in a scathing attack on Mr Bush at a campaign stop in New Mexico, a battleground state where polls show the Massachusetts senator and the incumbent Republican locked in a tight contest.
Kerry singled out Halliburton, the multinational company Vice President Dick Cheney once headed, for landing huge no-bid government contracts to rebuild war-torn Iraq.
"It is clear that almost every aspect of this war, from how we went to how it was conducted, has been mismanaged, all the way to turning a blind eye to the massive overcharging and waste that their friends at Halliburton engage in," he said.
The Bush administration has been dogged with questions surrounding the awarding of big contracts, without a competitive bidding process, to Mr Cheney's old firm, which also has been accused in several reports of overcharging.
"That's their cronyism," Kerry said. "They chose to give it to the big folks at the expense of the average person in the country."
That money could be better spent on American troops who badly need equipment and armor in Iraq, Kerry said.
Kerry said if elected, he would overhaul the contract procurement process to make it simpler, more open, fair and transparent. He also would designs systems to punish those who abuse it, he said.
Timed with Kerry's attack on the ethics of the Bush administration, his campaign released a new television ad, Cheney Halliburton.
The new ad claims the no-bid contracts for Halliburton have meant $2 million in bonuses and deferred compensation to Cheney and $200 billion in costs to the nation.
The Bush campaign countered that Kerry's accusations were "false and baseless".