USAID spent $20M in taxpayers’ money on Iraq’s version of Sesame Street

by WorldTribune Staff, February 5, 2025 Real World News

An Iraqi television program named “Ahlan Simsim” is billed as the Middle East country’s version of “Sesame Street.”

“Ahlan Simsim”, which is “Welcome Sesame” in English, received $20 million in U.S. taxpayer funds courtesy of the Biden-Harris regime’s United States Agency for International Development (USAID).

USAID described the program as an effort to promote “inclusion” and “mutual respect.”

Nebraska Republican Rep. Mike Flood told Newsmax TV’s Todd Starnes that his constituents are disgusted by how their hard-earned money was being used.

“This humiliates our country,” Flood said, pointing to millions more in U.S. taxpayer money that was sent by USAID to provide sex change operations in Guatemala and to send fashion models and designers from Ukraine to Paris and London.

Iowa Republican Sen. Joni Ernst published a list of projects and programs she says USAID has helped fund, highlighting it as “wasteful and dangerous” spending that ripped off taxpayers until the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) stepped in.

“From funneling tax dollars to risky research in Wuhan to sending Ukrainians to Paris Fashion Week, USAID is one of the worst offenders of waste in Washington… all around the world,” Ernst posted to X on Monday.

In another example, Ernst said USAID was found to have provided millions of dollars to farmers in Afghanistan in an effort to get them to grow food instead of poppy fields and opium. The plan backfired and led to an increase in poppy production, and thus opium production, during the war in Afghanistan.

Ernst said USAID spent $2 million to fund “Moroccan pottery classes and promotion.” Morocco has been creating pottery since 6,000 B.C.

USAID also provided funds to boost tourism to Lebanon, Ernst said: “The agency spent $2 million promoting tourism to Lebanon, a nation the State Department warns against traveling to ‘due to crime, terrorism, civil unrest, kidnapping, unexploded landmines, and the risk of armed conflict.’ ”