WASHINGTON (AP) — Two of the four U.S. deaths in Benghazi might have been prevented, military leaders say, if commanders had known more about the intensity of the sporadic gunfire directed at the CIA facility where Americans had taken refuge and had pressed to get a rescue team there faster.

Senior military leaders have told Congress in closed-door testimony that after the first attack on the main U.S. diplomatic compound on Sept. 11, 2012, they thought the fighting had subsided and the Americans who had fled to the CIA base about a mile away were safe. In fact, they were facing intermittent small arms fire and rocket-propelled grenades around midnight and had returned fire. Then the attackers dispersed.