Colin Powell, a US war hero and the first Black secretary of state who saw his legacy tarnished when he made the case for war in Iraq in 2003, has died from complications from Covid-19.
He was 84. “We have lost a remarkable and loving husband, father, grandfather and a great American,” the family said in a statement posted to social media on Monday.
The retired four-star general and former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff who served four presidents made his reputation as a man of honor distant from the political fray – an asset in the corridors of power. “General Powell is an American hero, an American example, and a great American story,” George W. Bush said as he announced the nomination of Powell, the son of Jamaican immigrants who became the Republican president’s secretary of state in 2000.
“Indirectness of speech, his towering integrity, his deep respect for our democracy, and his soldier’s sense of duty and honor, Colin Powell demonstrates… qualities that will make him a great representative of all the people of this country.”
But he found it hard to live down his infamous February 2003 speech to the United Nations Security Council about the alleged existence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq — the evidence he presented was later proven to be false
. “It’s a blot… and will always be a part of my record. It was painful. It’s painful now,” Powell said in a 2005 interview with ABC News. Tributes nevertheless poured in from Congress, where Democratic Senator Mark Warner praised Powell as “a patriot and a public servant,” while House Republican Peter Meijer described him as a rarity in the modern age: “a true soldier-statesman.” The family statement said Powell had been fully vaccinated.
