Former US Secretary of State Colin Powell, who earned condemnation for making a case for the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, has died due to Covid complications. He was 84.
Powell was the first African-American to hold the powerful post of US Secretary of State under the then President George W Bush, a Republican leader.
“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,” a statement by the Powell family read on Facebook.
The statement added, “We have lost a remarkable and loving husband, father, grandfather and a great American.”
Powell was among the few leaders, who successfully made a case for the invasion of Iraq citing the non-existing weapons of mass destruction. Both he and Tony Blair, the then British prime minister, had to face widespread condemnation for misleading their countries to attack Iraq.
Months after Saddam Hussain was ousted from power and executed, Powell admitted that the claims on Iraq possessing weapons of mass destruction was wrong. He later described his decision to push faulty intelligence before the United Nations to make a case for Iraq as a ‘blot’ on his record.
The US invasion in Iraq led to the killings of hundreds of thousands of civilians and the destruction of the country’s economy.
Another votary of Iraq war, the then Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, too died in July this year. Reacting to Rumsfeld’s death, Powell had said, “I worked for Don Rumsfeld in 1977 when he was the Secretary of Defense and I was a Colonel and a Brigade Commander in the 101st Airborne Division (AA). We served together as Cabinet officers in the Bush 43 Administration. I was the Secretary of State and Don was the Secretary of Defense. We didn’t always agree on issues. But there was never any doubt in my mind that Don was committed to the best interests of the nation. I express my sympathy to Joyce and his family.”