A raucous debate is raging in Egypt over whether to accept some $200 million in US aid to build up long-suppressed civil society organizations, as critics denounce Washington for "meddling" in internal Egyptian affairs by providing assistance to groups not authorized by the interim authorities in Cairo. Several weeks after the February 11 ouster of longtime president Hosni Mubarak, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) allocated around $65 million to democracy-development programs in Egypt, part of an economic and civil assistance package of $200 million.