He was also the first black national security adviser at the end of Ronald Reagan’s presidency
Former United States Secretary of State Colin Powell has died at the age of 84 after complications from COVID-19.
“General Colin L. Powell, a former US secretary of state and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, died this morning due to complications from Covid 19,” the Powell family said on Facebook.
His relatives report that he has been fully vaccinated.
“We want to thank the medical staff at Walter Reed Hospital for their care. We have lost a remarkable and loving husband, father, grandfather and a great American,” the family wrote.
The first black secretary of state of the United States helped shape major foreign policy directions in the last years of the last and beginning of this century.
“Bulgaria has always been the right hand of the United States in the fight against terrorism,” Colin Powell said during a 2003 visit to Bulgaria.
Colin Luther Powell was born on April 5, 1937. From 2001 to 2005, he served under President George W. Bush as the 65th Secretary of State, the first African-American to hold that position.
“I think it shows the world what is possible in this country,” Powell said of his historic Senate confirmation nomination.
“This shows the world: Follow our model and after a certain period of time from our beginning, if you believe in the values you uphold, you can see things as miraculous as I am sitting in front of you to get your approval.”
Power was also the chief of staff of the United States. He had a long career in the army and served in Vietnam. He was also the first black national security adviser at the end of Ronald Reagan’s presidency. He headed the headquarters during the time of the next head of state, President George Herbert Walker Bush.
His national popularity rose after the victory of the US-led coalition during the Gulf War, and for a time in the mid-1990s he was considered a leading contender to become the first black president of the United States.
However, his reputation will be tarnished forever when, as George W. Bush’s first secretary of state, he gave false intelligence to the United Nations to advocate for the war in Iraq. On February 5, 2003, six weeks before the invasion of Iraq, Powell gave a 76-minute speech to the UN Security Council assuring the world that Saddam Hussein possessed biological and chemical weapons of mass destruction. And that the regime in Baghdad is trying to acquire nuclear weapons. A few years later, Colin Powell himself described this speech as a “disgrace” in his career.
Later in his public life, Power became disillusioned with the right-wing Republican policies and used his political capital to help elect Democrats in the White House, most notably Barack Obama, the first black president. His support in 2008 gave a significant boost to Obama’s candidacy due to Powell’s great popularity and fame as one of the most prominent and successful black Americans in public life.
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