I believe wholeheartedly that these "breakdowns" are just manufactured deniability. Someone knew about this, or at least knew that there was something they didn't know about and didn't want to know about. I think it benefits the US immensely to have bad things happen to middle eastern states that she's not directly responsible for or even provably aware of, which is why we keep buying bombs for the guy who is continually bombing several middle eastern states at once then not asking what they're gonna do with the bombs.