Hillary Clinton takes blame for US deaths in Libya

Clinton's statements come ahead of the second campaign debate between President Barack Obama and Republican candidate Mitt Romney.

He said that ensuring the safety of US diplomatic staff overseas was her job, not that of the White House.

In all, four Americans died when the US consulate in Benghazi was attacked.

"What we had to do in the state department was keep focused not on why something happened - that was for the intelligence community to determine - but what was happening and what could happen," she told US TV channels.

"And that's what I was very much working on, day and night, to try to make sure that we intervened with governments. We did everything we could to keep our people safe, which is my primary responsibility."

The Obama administration has faced withering criticism over the attack on the Benghazi consulate.

Republicans are heaping blame on the administration - and specifically on the White House itself, the BBC reports.

In interviews, Clinton appeared to acknowledge that she was trying to shield the president, the British broadcaster reports.

Clinton said she was focused on tracking down the killers of the US ambassador to Libya and bringing them to justice.

"I don't think we want to get into any blame game. I think what we want to do is get to the bottom of what happened, figure out what we're going to do to protect people and prevent it from happening again and then track down whoever did and bring them to justice."