USAID and the CIA
Recent revelations that the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) spent $5 billion in 2024 in Ukraine was accompanied by news that many Ukrainian media outlets had to cease operations because of lack of funds once Trump froze the program.
One of Ukraine’s most prominent investigative media outlets, Bihus Info, calculated that thanks to its investigations, which uncovered corruption in the Ukrainian army and government, around 1.2bn billion hryvnia ($29m) had been saved and returned to the state budget. . . .
Bihus Info, which gets around two-thirds of its total funding from the US, turned to readers to seek emergency support to continue operations. Many other major Ukrainian independent media did likewise.
This same report tries to downplay the importance of USAID’s support for intelligence operations — i.e., propaganda — by insisting that only a pittance of USAID’s $5 billion budget in Ukraine was spent on media. The rest, we are told, was for “economic development.” I think that is bullshit.
When I joined the CIA in 1985, there was a strict ban on the CIA’s Operations side of the outfit using USAID for cover or for operations. I double-checked this with a buddy, who retired as a CIA Chief of Station in the early 2000s, and he confirmed that any use of USAID was proscribed.
Sometime during the Presidency of George W. Bush, that prohibition was removed (or ignored) and the CIA and USAID off-again relationship was back on.
The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) was created on November 3, 1961, by President John F. Kennedy through an executive order, following the passage of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 by Congress. This act provided the legal authority for the establishment of USAID as an independent agency within the U.S. government, initially under the State Department, but later formalized as an independent agency in 1998.
Shortly after Kennedy’s creation of USAID, the CIA used USAID as “official cover” for some of its case officers and as a vehicle for carrying out covert operations. This partnership involved several controversial activities:
In the 1960s and 1970s, USAID’s Office of Public Safety worked closely with the CIA’s Office of Public Safety to train foreign police forces. This program was accused of teaching “terror and torture techniques” and encouraging official brutality in various countries1.
The CIA often operated abroad under USAID cover, using the agency’s humanitarian mission as a front for intelligence gathering and covert operations4.
In Indonesia during the 1960s, USAID, the State Department, and the CIA collaborated on counterinsurgency efforts, blurring the lines between development aid and military assistance3.
The CIA changed its policy about working with USAID in the early 1970s. In 1973, Congress directed USAID to phase out its public safety program, which had been collaborating with the CIA to train foreign police forces2. This decision was made largely due to allegations that the program was involved in training foreign police in “terror and torture techniques” and encouraging official brutality, which were hurting America’s public image abroad2. By the time the program was closed, USAID had helped train thousands of military personnel and police officers in various countries2.
The relationship between the CIA and USAID was revived sometime after George W Bush took office. I do not have a precise date. But we do know the following:
In 2009-2012, USAID was involved in a covert operation in Cuba called “ZunZuneo,” which aimed to create an anti-government digital social network. This project involved CIA agents disguised as aid workers and tourists attempting to stir up anti-government sentiment34.
The CIA has also used USAID’s resources for intelligence gathering. For instance, in 2009, a USAID-funded project to map Afghan populations in Pakistan was allegedly used to gather intelligence2.
And we know that CIA, using USAID, was involved in pushing propaganda through Ukrainian media outlets that the outside world mistakenly believed were independent journalists. I am not suggesting I have all, or even some, of the answers about how the CIA and USAID have collaborated over the past 20 years. But there is little doubt that USAID funds — under CIA direction and guidance — were used to spark color revolutions in the Arab world, Ukraine, Georgia and Hungary.
I am putting this in your hands in hopes of generating more information. I’ve learned one thing from having this blog — a lot of very intelligence people take time to read and comment and many of you have knowledge about these matters that I do not. I guess I am trying to crowdsource more information on USAID intelligence activities.
I believe one of those targets has been Iran, which brings me to the video below. I had a great discussion on Thursday with Professor Seyed Mohammad Marandi — an American citizen by virtue of his birth in Virginia — who lives and teaches in Iran. Professor Marandi served in the Iranian Army during the Iran/Iraq war and was wounded twice. That said, he is a gentle man, possessed of a keen mind. We discussed the current situation in the region:
Tom Stevenson writes regularly on military and intelligence matters for the London Review of Books and New Left Review. Here he notes the sources of funding for Britain’s civilian-military intelligentsia, or what passes for it:
https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v44/n19/tom-stevenson/at-the-top-table
The relevant passage:
Many countries find a special place for civilians who share the interests of the state’s military, intelligence and diplomatic bureaucracy but operate outside its hierarchy. In Britain they are spread among a network of security think tanks and academic departments that include the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), the Royal Institute for International Affairs (Chatham House) and the Department of War Studies at King’s College London. From fine old buildings in Whitehall, Temple, St James’s Square and the Strand, they shape much of the foreign and defence policy analysis produced in Britain. Each institution has its own flavour (the Chatham House sensibility is more mandarin than military), but they have a great deal in common. All have close connections with the intelligence services – after John Sawers retired as head of MI6 in 2014, he took up posts at King’s and RUSI – and an equally close relationship with the national security establishment of the United States.
Among the British defence intelligentsia, Atlanticism is a foundational assumption. A former director of policy planning at the US State Department and a former director at the US National Security Council are on the staff of the IISS. Until he stepped down in July, Chatham House was led by Robin Niblett, who spent time at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. RUSI’s director-general, Karin von Hippel, was once chief of staff to the four-star American general John Allen. In 2021, RUSI’s second largest donor was the US State Department. (The largest was the EU Commission; BAE Systems, the British army, the Foreign Office and some other friendly governments account for most of the remaining funding.) IISS’s main funders – aside from the EU Commission, the State Department and, notably, Bahrain – are mostly arms companies. Chatham House gets more money from the British government and oil companies than from arms sellers, but its list of backers is similar. Despite these US links, however, and despite the fervency of their commitment to American national security priorities, British security think tanks have next to no influence across the Atlantic. Staff from UK think tanks sometimes take temporary jobs in more prestigious offices in Washington, but they very rarely become insiders.