Who was Colin Powell?

The former US Joint Chiefs chairman and secretary of state Colin Powell died from COVID-19 complications, his family said Monday. He was 84.

In an announcement on social media, the family said Powell had been fully vaccinated.

“We have lost a remarkable and loving husband, father and grandfather and a great American,” the family said.

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Former President George W Bush said he and former first lady Laura Bush were “deeply saddened” by Powell’s death.

“He was a great public servant” and “widely respected at home and abroad,” Bush said. “And most important, Colin was a family man and a friend. Laura and I send Alma and their children our sincere condolences as they remember the life of a great man.”

Who was Colin Powell?

Colin Powell was a four-star general who served as the 65th United States Secretary of State from 2001 to 2005. In 1989 Powell became the first Black chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. In that role he oversaw the US invasion of Panama and later the U.S. invasion of Kuwait to oust the Iraqi army in 1991.

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Prior to Obama being elected as the President in 2008, Powell and his successor, Condoleezza Rice, were the highest-ranking African Americans in the history of the federal executive branch. 

He served as the National Security Advisor from 1987 to 1989 and as the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from 1989 to 1993.

Born in New York City, Powell was raised in the South Bronx. His parents immigrated to the United States from Jamaica. 

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Powell’s reputation suffered a painful setback when, in 2003, Powell went before the U.N. Security Council and made the case for U.S. war against Iraq. He cited faulty information claiming Saddam Hussein had secretly stashed away weapons of mass destruction. Iraq’s claims that it had not represented “a web of lies,” he told the world body.

With inputs from the Associated Press