Former US Secretary of State Colin Powell is dead. The 84-year-old died of complications from Covid 19, shared his family on Facebook.
The statement said Powell died Monday morning at Walter Reed Military Hospital in Bethesda near Washington DC. “We thank the medical staff for their caring treatment. We are losing an outstanding, loving husband, father, grandfather and a great American,” the letter reads. Powell was fully vaccinated.
The four-star general, a son of Jamaican immigrants from New York, was National Security Advisor to US President Ronald Reagan in the late 1980s, and then served as Chairman and Commander of the United Joint Chiefs of Staff under Presidents George HW Bush and Bill Clinton of the US armed forces during the 1991 Gulf War.
Under President George W. Bush, he was US Secretary of State from 2001 to 2005; he was the youngest Secretary of State, which existed up to then, and he was the first black in this office, which was seen as an important political signal in the USA at the time.
Alienation from the Republicans
Powell’s tenure was overshadowed by the events following the 9/11 attacks, the war on terror and the start of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Powell was seen in the Bush administration as an advocate of multilateralism and a moderate force, whereas Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld had the reputation of hardliners. This was particularly evident before the start of the Iraq war: the hardliners, citing alleged intelligence of the secret services about Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction, pushed for military action. In February 2003, Powell finally campaigned for approval for the Iraq war in a speech before the UN Security Council, citing intelligence that was later discredited. In retirement, Powell later described this speech as a major mistake.
Powell had been a Republican member since the mid-1990s, but has become increasingly estranged from his party in recent years because of the shift to the right. After Bush’s re-election in November 2004, he resigned from office. Before the 2008 election, the Republican surprised his party colleagues by speaking out in favor of the Democratic candidate Barack Obama. After January 6 of this year, when a mob of violent Trump supporters stormed the US Capitol, he resigned from the party for good.
Numerous politicians have expressed their grief over Powell’s death: George W. Bush and his wife Laura said that Powell had served the country outstandingly “beginning with his time as a soldier in Vietnam”. Many presidents would have trusted his advice. He was a friend and an outstanding man.
Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said during a trip to Georgia that the world had “lost one of its most outstanding leaders.” Powell had been a friend and mentor to him for many years. “We will definitely miss him. I feel like I have a hole in my heart,” said Austin.