The safe room was anything but safe. I’m sure the committee members know that neither Chris Stevens nor Sean Smith died from injuries directly received by the attackers. They both died of smoke inhalation. When we have safe havens we need to have equipment that will enable people to withstand what happened in Benghazi.  The diplomatic security officer who was with the ambassador and Sean Smith endeavored to lead them to safety through a wall of black smoke. He wanted to get them through the interior of teh compound to the roof, where they would get clear of the fire and the attackers … he himself nearly died of smoke inhalation.  Rather than proceeding and saving himself which would be a human instinct, he turned back into that wall of black diesel smoke trying to find Chris and Sean. He did find Sean, and Sean had succumbed of smoke inhalation. He managed to get Sean out of the building, but could not find ambassador Chris Stevens.  One of our failures after the attack was our failure to find the ambassador. We hoped against hope that he had somehow managed to get out of the compound … Additional efforts to find his body or to find him were unsuccessful, and htey had to withdraw because of teh continuing attack on the CIA annex before we knew what happened to the ambassador.  We were desperate … we learned later that the Libyans had found the ambassador. And they had carried him back to the hospital, and Libyan doctors labored nearly two hours to rescuscitate him.  I mention all of this [to the committee and public] because this was the fog of war … and [because diplomatic security officers] did everything they could to save their lives.
Marathon testimony on Benghazi attack meanders beyond emails, with Clinton keeping calm as Republicans and Democrats keep fighting