Former US state secretary Colin Powell dies of Covid complications
Washington DC, Oct 18 (EFE).- General Colin L. Powell, the first African-American to serve as the United States’ Secretary of State, died Monday at the age of 84 from complications related to Covid-19.
His family made the announcement in a message on Facebook, in which they said they had lost “a remarkable and loving husband, father, grandfather, and a great American.”
The US general was fully vaccinated against coronavirus, the statement added.
Powell was Republican President George W. Bush’s secretary of state from 2001 to 2005 having previously served as chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff during the first Gulf War (1989-1991).
The New York-born four-star general died at Walter Reed Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland, outside Washington DC.
Despite being one of the most influential generals of recent decades, Powell is arguably most remembered for his 2003 presentation before the UN Security Council, in which he argued in favor of military intervention in Iraq by assuring that the then Iraqi president, Saddam Hussein, had weapons of mass destruction.
He later acknowledged that it was a mistake and a “blot” on his political career.
Although a member of the Republican party, in recent years he dissociated himself from US conservatives. Last year he campaigned for Democrat Joe Biden, and in 2016 he supported the candidacy of Democrat Hillary Clinton, instead of Donald Trump. EFE
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