Seems like our embassy's would have a panic rooms.

[moobu2]

A safe room large enough and self contained with communications, oxygen and food where a small group of people could safely wait rescue during an attack. Especially in unstable countries.

[atreides1]

1. Sure

The ones that we build...the compound in Benghazi wasn't built by the US.

[Proud Public Servant]

2. They do

Not sure what happened in Libya, but I would note that even safe rooms have to be ventilated, and it sounds like Amb. Stevens died of smoke inhalation. By way of comparison, the harrowing opening chapter of Ghost Wars, Steve Cole's excellent book about the CIA in Afghanistan, discusses the attack on our embassy in Islamabad in the 70s; embassy personnel almost suffocated to death precisely because they'd gone to the safehaven, and it was ultimately fleeing the safehaven and climbing to the fresh air on the roof that saved their lives.

[randome]

4. Couldn't ventilation be contained in some way? For a short duration?

I lack the engineering creds to know if this is a stupid question or not.

[Proud Public Servant]

8. I'm no engineer either, but

you crowd a lot of people into a small room and you need real ventilation in very short order.

That doesn't sound like the issue in Benghazi, but it was in Islamabad and would be at other embassies (I've served in serveral).

[Marrah_G]

3. This was a new consulate office, not the main embassy

[alcibiades_mystery]

5. The compound/consulate in Benghazi wasn't an embassy

Embassies, in addition to usually having some sort of safe room, will generally be located in the capital of a country, which, in Libya's case, would be Tripoli. The building in Benghazi was not an embassy, so your question is rather beside the point.

[panader0]

6. The ambassador was in a car.......

[renie408]

7. Yep. He was killed on the way into or out of the embassy. n/t

[muriel_volestrangler]

9. A Libyan minister says 2 of the 4 were killed in an attack on a 'safe house'

Gunmen had attacked and set fire to the U.S. consulate in the eastern city of Benghazi, the cradle of last year's uprising against Muammar Gaddafi's 42-year rule, late on Tuesday evening as another assault was mounted on the U.S. embassy in Cairo.

California-born ambassador Christopher Stevens was killed in the assault, but it was not clear how or where he died. U.S. consular staff were rushed to a safe house after the initial attack, Libya's Deputy Interior Minister Wanis Al-Sharif said.

An evacuation plane with U.S. commandos units then arrived from Tripoli to evacuate them from the house.

"It was supposed to be a secret place and we were surprised the armed groups knew about it. There was shooting," Sharif said. Two U.S. personnel were killed there, he said. Two other people were killed at the main consular building and between 12 and 17 wounded.

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2012/09/12/uk-libya-usa-attack-idUKBRE88B0ED20120912

So, not a 'panic room', but it seems they had planned a way to evacuate. Either they were followed, or someone had information about the safe house, if that's accurate.

[magical thyme]

10. this was a temporary setup in a leased building while the new embassy was being built

so it was known as a particularly dangerous assignment because it wasn't in a normal, "hardened" building or compound.

[librechik]

11. the embassy was temporarily in a leased building while secure building under construction

probably anyone could have located the building map.

And no hardened rooms.

[benld74]

12. Iraq $900 million embassy has one, BUT

there is NOTHING that can be done against either missles or mortars being used against it.