Houston's Halliburton Co. went on the offensive Friday, disputing allegations the company overcharged for trucking gasoline into Iraq.

Company officials scrambled to rebut criticisms leveled by some influential House Democrats, who had accused the prime contractor responsible for bringing fuel into Iraq of gouging American taxpayers.

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Halliburton subsidiary KBR, formerly known as Kellogg Brown & Root, had been paid more than $304 million as of Sept. 18 to import nearly 192 million gallons of fuel from Kuwait to Baghdad.

That worked out to an average fee of $1.59 a gallon, the lawmakers said.

Tack on the return of 2 percent to 7 percent the company is allowed to earn under the contract and the price tag ticks up to somewhere between $1.62 and $1.70 a gallon.

Between April and September, the lawmakers noted, gasoline was selling on the wholesale market in the Middle East for about 71 cents a gallon. That meant KBR was charging between 91 cents and 99 cents a gallon to truck in the fuel.

The lawmakers consulted with some energy industry experts, who estimated KBR should be able to bring in the fuel for somewhere between 10 cents to 25 cents per gallon.