Colin Powell, First African-American US Secretary Of State, Passes Away At 84 Due To COVID Complications

In 1996, Powell was touted as a possible opponent of Bill Clinton to become the first Black US president. However, he declined, citing a lack of passion for politics. 

In this file photo taken on September 8, 2003, former US Secretary of State Colin Powell listens to a question from a reporter outside the front doors of the State Department in Washington, DC. Colin Powell, a US war hero and the first Black secretary of state, has died from complications from COVID-19. (Photo: Tim SLOAN / AFP)

New Delhi: Colin Powell, the first African-American US Secretary of state and top military officer, passed away on Monday at the age of 84 due to COVID-induced complications. 

Powell’s family informed about his death in a statement on Facebook.

“General Colin L. Powell, former US Secretary of State and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, passed away this morning due to complications from Covid 19.  He was fully vaccinated,” the Facebook post read.  

“We want to thank the medical staff at Walter Reed National Medical Center for their caring treatment. We have lost a remarkable and loving husband, father, grandfather and a great American,” it added. 

General Colin Powell, with his experience in the military, had been one of America’s most significant Black figures for decades. 

He was assigned senior posts by three Republican presidents and also reached the top of the US military after the traumatic Vietnam War.

Powell was wounded in Vietnam and served as US national security adviser under President Ronald Reagan from 1987 to 1989, news agency Reuters mentioned in its report. 

The four-star Army general served as a chairman of the military’s Joint Chiefs of Staff under President George H.W. Bush during the 1991 Gulf War wherein US-led forces expelled Iraqi troops from Kuwait.

In 1996, Powell, a moderate Republican, was touted as a possible opponent of Bill Clinton to become the first Black US president. However, he declined, citing a lack of passion for politics. 

He was seen as a potential candidate in the 2000 US presidential election as well, where he again decided against running.

Later, in 2008, he broke with the Republican party to endorse Democrat Barack Obama, who went on to become the first Black president of the United States.

On the other hand, Colin Powell’s legacy is marred with his controversial presentation on February 5, 2003, to the U.N. Security Council.

It made the case for President George W. Bush, who Powell had endorsed earlier in the 2000 Republican National Convention, to establish that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein constituted an imminent danger to the world because of his alleged stockpiles of nuclear and biological weapons.

He later went on to admit that the presentation was rife with inaccuracies and twisted intelligence provided by others in the Bush administration. It represented “a blot” that will “always be a part of my record”, he said as quoted by Reuters.