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Communications. you would send diplomats and envoys into places and not hear from them for maybe months. this was, obviously, not of that kind, but it was not that different in degree from what we had done before, and it was a risky undertaking and one which chris volunteered for and was anxious to undertake. and it was so risky i d like to pull be up another e-mail from the op center that was forwarded to you from ms. abedin on sunday, april 10th. so he had been there about five days. and it indicates that the situation had worsened to the point where stevens is considering departing from benghazi. this is within five days of him going in. were you aware of that concern within the first five days that he had gone in? yes. and did anyone share that with you? yes. we were aware because we were really counting on chris to guide us and give us the information from the ground. we had no other sources. you know, there was no american ....
Leaders, business leaders in benghazi. so he felt very comfortable. it was his decision. ambassadors do not have to seek permission from the state department to travel around the country that they are assigned to. he decided to go to benghazi. by taking two security officers with him and having three there, he had the requisite five that had been the subject of discussion between the embassy and the state department s security professionals. i m not going to in any be in any way suggest that he or the embassy got everything they requested. we know that they didn t from the accountability review board, from investigations that were done by the congress. we know that there were a lot of discussions about what was needed particularly in benghazi and that the day that he died he ....
As well. there is a, there is, of course, information that we were obtaining about the increasingly dangerous environment in libya. across the country but in particular in eastern libya. and we were aware of that, and we were certainly taking that into account. there was no actionable intelligence on september 11th or even before that date about any kind of planned attack on our compound in benghazi, and there were a lot of debates apparently that went on within the security professionals about what to provide because they did have to prioritize. the accountability review board pointed that out. the state department has historically and certainly before this terrible incident ....
To say it s frustrating for us here on this panel asking these questions to hear you in your opening statement talk about the responsibility you took for all 70 plus thousand employees, yet i ll read you an e-mail that is a conversation between two of those employees, and it seems as though you re just brushing it off as not having any knowledge. i m just saying i have no recollection of it, and it doesn t core respond with the facts of what we were doing on a regular basis. i ve got a few seconds left, we can talk about the security. in 2011 during the revolution, then-envoy stevens had ten agents with him on the ground in benghazi. and then we know in 2012 where the security situation had deteriorated even further there were only three agents assigned to benghazi. again, can t even move anybody off of the facility to do the necessary political reporting. and my question is, you know, ....
The least we could do would be to actually focus on the four brave americans who were killed, why they were killed and focus on benghazi. and we have not. i mean, mr. process couple s questions i found to be the most interesting. it was like he was running for president. he wanted to debate you on overall libya policy as to why we got in there in the first place. that s debatable, and i think you will argue that quite well. but that s not about the attack on benghazi. that s not about what we could have done to better protect them. so again, i ve seen this committee is focused on you. and i m, you know, the ranking member of the armed services committee. i don t see the department of defense here, i don t see the cia here. there were many, many other agencies involved in this, and yet yours has been the one that they have obsessively focused on. and, you know, i think that s a shame for a whole lot of reasons. but one thing, you know, this committee as it s been in the ....