page_title: Mary Catherine Phee
section_title: Career
hierarchical_section_title: Mary Catherine Phee / Career
caption_attribution_description: DIRE DAWA, Ethiopia (May 22, 2012) Rear Admiral Michael Franken, left, commander of Combined Joint Task Force Horn of Africa, Kumsa Baysa, principal of Gende Gerada Primary School, Molly Phee, deputy chief of mission at the U.S. Embassy in Ethiopia, Egei Wabere, an Gende Gerada Kebele education coordinator, and Stephen Fitzpatrick, program coordinator for U.S. Agency for International Development gather for a school building dedication and ribbon cutting ceremony for a new school house and two latrines at the Gende Gerada Primary School. (U.S. Air Force photo by Tech. Sgt. Ryan Labadens/Released) Join the conversation www.facebook.com/USNavy www.twitter.com/USNavy navylive.dodlive.mil
context_page_description: Mary Catherine "Molly" Phee is an American diplomat and a former United States Ambassador to South Sudan. She was nominated by President Barack Obama on September 17, 2014; and confirmed by the Senate June 24, 2015. She was sworn in on July 15, 2015, to replace Susan D. Page, who had resigned.
  Phee was recalled to Washington in late 2017 to serve as the Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Bureau of International Organization Affairs. Most recently, she has been serving as the Deputy Special Representative for Afghanistan Reconciliation. In October 2018, it was announced that she would be nominated to be the next United States Ambassador to Qatar. That nomination has, however, expired.
context_section_description: Following her graduate studies, Phee became a deputy press secretary to Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan.
  Phee joined the U.S. Foreign Service in 1991. Her assignments in the Foreign Service have included ones in Rome, Italy; Kuwait City, Kuwait; Cairo, Egypt; and Amman, Jordan and Washington, DC.
  From 2003 to 2004, she served as the Senior Civilian Representative of the Coalition Provisional Authority to Maysan Province, Iraq 
  Phee moved to New York in 2005 as counselor for political affairs at the U.S. mission to the United Nations, where on occasion sat in for then Ambassador John R. Bolton.
  Phee served as Counselor for Political Affairs and Deputy Security Council Coordinator at the U.S. Mission to the United Nations. Then 
  in 2008, Phee then took an assignment in Italy as the regional affairs coordinator at the U.S. Embassy in Rome. Ambassador Ryan Crocker and General David Petraeus invited Phee to join the Joint Strategic Assessment Team established in 2007 to revise the U.S. strategy in Iraq. She then returned to Washington to serve as director for Iraq at the National Security Council. In that role she was responsible for coordinating the U.S. transition from military to civilian operations.
  From 2011 to 2014, Phee served as Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. Embassy in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. When President Obama nominated her to become Ambassador to South Sudan, she was already serving as Chief of Staff at the Office of the Special Envoy for Sudan and South Sudan.
  When the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee did not immediately confirm Phee’s nomination, several NGO’s wrote to the committee urging it to quickly confirm the nomination, given the difficult situation in South Sudan. The organizations included Better World Campaign, The Enough Project, Humanity United, Jewish World Watch, International Rescue Committee, Mercy Corps, Oxfam America, Relief International, Save the Children, United to End Genocide, and Water for South Sudan. The NGO’s protested that the U.S. had been without a confirmed Ambassador to South Sudan since August 2014. They noted that the absence of an ambassador in a country involved in a "deadly, costly and geopolitically destabilizing civil war" had limited the U.S. ability to successfully promote peaceful resolution.
  In accepting the role of Ambassador in 2015, Phee was expected to oversee the relief effort of $456 million donated by the U.S. for over a million people displaced by the war, as well as revive the peace talks in Addis Ababa.
caption: Molly Phee (center) at school building dedication and ribbon cutting ceremony.
exif: {"Image Make": "NIKON CORPORATION", "Image Model": "NIKON D700", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "300", "Image YResolution": "300", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop CS5 Macintosh", "Image DateTime": "2012:05:24 11:10:37", "Image ExifOffset": "220", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "886", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "8258", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/125", "EXIF FNumber": "10", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Manual", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "100", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2012:05:22 09:33:15", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2012:05:22 09:33:15", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "870723/125000", "EXIF ApertureValue": "415241/62500", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "9/2", "EXIF SubjectDistance": "89/50", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash fired, compulsory flash mode, return light detected", "EXIF FocalLength": "48", "EXIF SubSecTime": "58", "EXIF SubSecTimeOriginal": "58", "EXIF SubSecTimeDigitized": "58", "EXIF ColorSpace": "Uncalibrated", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "4256", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "2832", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF CVAPattern": "[2, 0, 2, 0, 0, 1, 1, 2]", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Manual Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "1", "EXIF FocalLengthIn35mmFilm": "48", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF GainControl": "None", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal", "EXIF SubjectDistanceRange": "0"}