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Carmela A. Conroy is an American diplomat,politician,and former career Foreign Service officer whose 25-year diplomatic career included postings across Asia,Europe,and the Pacific. She is best known for serving as the U.S. Consul General in Lahore,Pakistan during the 2011 Raymond Davis incident,a major diplomatic crisis between the United States and Pakistan.[1][2][3]
She later earned an M.A. in national security studies,graduating with highest distinction from the U.S. Naval War College's College of Naval Command and Staff.[11] Her 2004 research paper,Winning the Other,Other War:Winning Military Hearts and Minds for MOOTW in the Global War on Terror,focused on civil-military coordination and political stabilization.[12]
Legal career
Following law school and before her diplomatic career,Conroy worked as a deputy prosecutor in Spokane County from 1992 to 1996,handling felony and domestic violence cases.[1] Her experience in criminal law and victim advocacy later informed her work on rule-of-law issues in conflict and post-conflict environments.[11]
Foreign service career
Early postings
Conroy joined the United States Foreign Service in 1996. Her early assignments included postings in Auckland[13] and Tokyo,where she worked on political,consular,and public diplomacy issues.[1][14] In Tokyo,she was involved in diplomatic engagement related to the Atsugi incinerator emissions dispute.[1]
Between 2000 and 2001,Conroy served as a watch officer in the State Department's Operations Center,summarizing overseas communications and news reports for cabinet secretaries. In the aftermath of the September 11 attacks,she was in Washington,D.C. answering calls of support from America's allies.[1]
Afghanistan
Following completion of her M.A. at the Naval War College in 2004,Conroy joined the Provincial Reconstruction Team in Bamyan,Afghanistan,where she advised the New Zealand-led command on political issues,security reform,and humanitarian assistance.[11] She later returned to Afghanistan to serve as refugee coordinator for Pakistan,Afghanistan,and Iran during the post-9/11 conflicts,overseeing protection and repatriation programs.[1]
Consul General in Lahore
Conroy served as the U.S. Consul General in Lahore,Pakistan,becoming the senior American diplomat in Punjab province from 2009 to 2011.[1][14]
During her tenure,Lahore and the wider Punjab province experienced a series of major militant attacks. On 15 October 2009,coordinated gun and bomb assaults in Lahore targeted police and intelligence facilities,killing dozens.[16][17]
On 7 December 2009,twin blasts at Moon Market in Allama Iqbal Town killed dozens and wounded about 100 people.[18]
This was followed on 15 December 2009 by a bombing in Dera Ghazi Khan that killed at least 33 people in a crowded market area.[19]
In March 2010,Lahore experienced further violence with twin suicide attacks on 12 March that killed at least 45 people and injured more than 100.[20][21]
On 28 May 2010,militants carried out coordinated attacks on two Ahmadi mosques in Lahore,killing 94 worshippers and injuring more than 100.[22]
Conroy's diplomatic counterparts included Punjab Governor Salman Taseer,with whom Secretary of StateHillary Clinton met during Clinton's October 2009 Lahore visit.[23][15] Taseer was assassinated by his own bodyguard on January 4,2011,while Conroy remained in her post.[24]
During the Raymond Davis crisis,Jamaat-e-Islami protesters demanded authorities register charges against Conroy and threatened to besiege the U.S. consulate.[25]
Later assignments
Following her assignment in Lahore,Conroy served at the U.S. Embassy in Oslo as Political and Economic Affairs Counselor from 2012 to 2015,where she worked on alliance management and diplomatic engagement with Norwegian partners.[1][26]
She later returned to Japan as Director of the FSI Yokohama Japanese Language and Area Training Center from 2018 to 2020.[27]
During her career,she received seven U.S. Department of State Superior or Meritorious Honor Awards.[26]
CIA Agency Seal Medal award certificate issued to Carmela Conroy
On January 27, 2011, CIA security contractor Raymond Allen Davis was arrested after shooting two men he said were trying to rob him at gunpoint; a third Pakistani man died when a U.S. consulate vehicle responding to the scene struck his motorcycle.[29][30][31]
Davis spent 49 days in custody, most of them in Kot Lakhpat Jail. According to his memoir, Conroy was the senior U.S. diplomat responsible for the consulate’s response.[29] Davis writes that she was among the first U.S. officials to see him after his arrest, that she arranged medical documentation of his treatment, briefed him on his rights under the Vienna Convention, and provided him with a notebook to send written messages to his family through consular channels.[29] He describes Conroy and other consulate personnel visiting him regularly, monitoring his welfare, and challenging prison officials over his treatment.[29]
At the end of the book, Davis writes of Conroy, “In many ways, Carmela Conroy is the true hero of this story... A true diplomat, she never allowed the immensity of the task she faced to overwhelm her, despite spending nearly as many hours in Kot Lakhpat Jail as I did.”[29]
On 16 March 2011, the families of the two men Davis killed accepted compensation under Pakistan’s diyat law, and he was released and transferred to U.S. custody the same day.[2][30][3]
Her role in the Davis case is documented in Davis’s memoir The Contractor,[32] Steve Coll’s Directorate S,[3] contemporary international reporting,[30][31] and a 2011 feature profile in GT Magazine.[33]
Political career
Conroy served as chair of the Spokane CountyDemocratic Party from 2022 to 2024.[34] She was elected chair in February 2022, following the resignation of incumbent chair Nicole Bishop.[4]
In 2024, she ran as the Democratic nominee for Washington's 5th congressional district against RepublicanMichael Baumgartner for the seat being vacated by Representative Cathy McMorris Rodgers.[34] She resigned from her position as party chair in January 2024 to focus on her campaign.[35] Conroy came in second in the August blanket primary amongst a field of ten other candidates, advancing to the November general election.[36] In the general election, she lost to Baumgartner by a margin of 22 percentage points.[6]
In 2025, Conroy announced her candidacy for a second run against Baumgartner in 2026.[37]
12345Coll, Steve (2018). Directorate S: The C.I.A. and America's Secret Wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan. New York: Penguin Press. pp.470–472. ISBN978-1-594-20458-6.
1234"A Law Degree in Action". UW Law Alumni Magazine. University of Washington School of Law (Gallagher Law Library Digital Commons). Summer 2011. pp.36–39. Retrieved November 26, 2025.
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