I did intel for the US Marines before I went out there myself and sorry to tell you these conspiracies are bs. Unless somehow magically some secret conspiracy organization has a clearance level above top secret which is the highest they will grant someone then I missed the memo. Do you know how insane authorizing the death of your own emergency services is? Someone would have surely admitted it by now in an attempt to get famous, but guess what? It's easy to analyze what anyone has and say that's why we did it.
Also in response to your lithium bit. That one trillion also includes other metals and it's supposed to help the economy in the middle east as well since we're helping them rebuild their government and not just for our own benefit.
I've seen several of my squad members get killed and the opposition is real, if I knew it was my own government on the other team I'd surely have gone rogue with the top secret info, but obviously that's not happening