Colin Powell, former US secretary of State who made case for Iraq invasion, dies of Covid complications at 84.
Family sources confirmed that the former top military officer died this morning of Covid complications.
“General Colin L. Powell, former U.S. Secretary of State and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, passed away this morning due to complications from Covid 19,” the Powell family wrote on Facebook.
The family further pointed out he was fully vaccinated.
“We have lost a remarkable and loving husband, father, grandfather and a great American,” they said.
Powell was the first Black national security advisor during the Reagan administration.
President George H.W. Bush tapped Powell to be the youngest and first Black chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Bush was among the first to pay tribute to “a great public servant” as well as “a family man and a friend” who “was such a favourite of presidents that he earned the Presidential Medal of Freedom – twice”.
Critics said that his reputation would be forever stained when he pushed faulty intelligence before the United Nations to advocate for the Iraq War, which he would later call a “blot” on his record.
“It was painful. It’s painful now,” Powell told ABC News in 2005.
