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WASHINGTON - The U.S. government, while urging the world to cut business ties with Iran, has given government contracts worth nearly $880 million to seven foreign companies involved in Iran's energy sector in recent years, a report said on Wednesday.

The report by the Government Accountability Office spurred criticism by U.S. lawmakers from both parties. They said the government should not be contracting with companies that help Iran's economy as long as Tehran is pursuing nuclear work that the West suspects is aimed at making a bomb.

"It is simply unacceptable for the U.S. government to enrich foreign firms that are enriching the extremist, expansionist, terrorist government of Iran," said Senator Joe Lieberman, an independent and chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.