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From the defense department to get a better idea of the 19 high threat posts. and that's exactly what we did. and it gave us some guidance to try to have better planning ahead of time. i know admiral mullen testified that it would be beyond the scope of our military to be able to provide immediate reaction to 270 posts, but that's why we tried to narrow down. and, of course, we do get help from our military in war zones. the military's been incredibly supportive of our embassy in kabul and our embassy in baghdad. but we have a lot of hot spots now and very dangerous places that are not in mili...

Myself in some dangerous places, i understand the dedication of our men and women who choose to serve this country overseas. i have a special affinity for the diplomatic corps because these are folks who go in without the benefit of weapons, without the benefit of military might armed only with america's values and diplomatic words and a handshake to forward our nation's interests globally. so i am absolutely determined to make sure that we safeguard in the name of our heroic dead our men and women in the diplomatic corps wherever they are around the world. so the bottom line for me, i'm a ver...

Of 2011 and that months later we come to find out that you didn't even know if we had a presence there? >> well, i can't comment on what has been reported. of course i knew we had a presence in benghazi. i knew that we were evaluating what that presence should be, how long it should continue, and i knew exactly what we were doing in libya. and i think it's important since you have some very legitimate questions about what we were doing, you know, the united states played a major role in the first election that the libyan people had in 51 years. it was a successful election by every count, and ...

That goes out initially looked at the 19 posts, that's great that they come back with a report. it's kind of like, you know, the seven reports, and now we have another committee. we keep having committees to look into benghazi, but we never act on them. it doesn't help our men and women on the ground, and that's what i'm focused on. so what i want to know is when they came back with their recommendations to them, have they been resourced? are they institutionalized? what has been done with this process so that it's not a snapshot in time in reaction to benghazi attack, and i want to make sure ...

No knowledge of -- >> please turn to tab 31. >> well, i trust that you have read it, but i also tell you that we had a presence in benghazi. we had members of the administration and congress visiting benghazi, so of course i knew we had a presence in benghazi. i can't speak to what someone either heard or misheard. but i think what's important -- and i understand that the underlying point of your question is what were we doing about -- >> right. and i've heard, i've heard -- >> that's what i'm trying to explain to you about what we were doing. >> yes, ma'am. i want to get to the second part of...