Mother of Benghazi victim: Hearing didn't give answers

Parents who lose children in national calamities come to represent a pain and grief and importance that it is difficult to ignore.

Pat Smith, mother of Benghazi victim Sean Smith, a State Department information officer, listened to the Benghazi hearing on Capitol Hill on Wednesday.

She said she didn’t get the answers she was looking for.

"I want to know why there was no security there, and the security that was there got pulled. And who was the one that told the military to stand down?" said Smith.

Rep. Darrell Issa, chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, opened that hearing pledging to get to the bottom of what happened in Benghazi last September 11.

"Our goal in this investigation is to get answers, because their families deserve answers. They were promised answers at the highest level when their bodies came home," Issa, a California Republican, said.

Smith said she was promised answers by President Barack Obama, then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Vice President Joe Biden, and then-Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta.

"When I was there at the casket ceremony, Obama and Hillary and Biden and Panetta and a lot, several more said that they would check into it and let me know," said Smith. "Not one of them has called me."

The last time the mother talked to her son was the day he died. He called her, Smith said, to tell her he was worried about people taking pictures outside the consulate in Benghazi.

"He said he reported it and they didn't care," said Smith. "Our government does not care about us. They don't care about us at all. They just care about saving their own butts."