Colin Powell, First Black US State Secretary, Passes Away At 84 Due To COVID Complications

<p><span style="font-weight: 400;"><strong>New Delhi:</strong> 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.&nbsp;</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Powell&rsquo;s family informed about his death in a statement on Facebook.</span></p> <p><strong>ALSO READ |<span style="color: #e03e2d;"> <a style="color: #e03e2d;" title="" href="https://ift.tt/3ASS7C7" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-toggle="tooltip" data-html="true" data-original-title="Story ID: 1488446">Facebook Plans To Hire 10,000 People In Europe To Build Its &lsquo;Metaverse&rsquo;</a></span></strong></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">&ldquo;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.&nbsp; He was fully vaccinated,&rdquo; the Facebook post read.&nbsp;&nbsp;</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">&ldquo;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,&rdquo; it added.&nbsp;</span></p> <p><iframe style="border: none; overflow: hidden;" src="https://ift.tt/3E6XsI3" width="500" height="342" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">General Colin Powell, with his experience in the military, was one of America&rsquo;s most significant Black figures for decades.&nbsp;</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">He was assigned senior posts by three Republican presidents and also reached the top of the US military after the traumatic Vietnam War.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">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.&nbsp;</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">The four-star Army general served as a chairman of the military&rsquo;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.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">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.&nbsp;</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">He was seen as a potential candidate in the 2000 US presidential election as well, where he again decided against running.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">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.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">On the other hand, Colin Powell&rsquo;s legacy is marred with his controversial presentation on February 5, 2003, to the U.N. Security Council.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">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.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">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 &ldquo;a blot&rdquo; that will &ldquo;always be a part of my record&rdquo;, he said as quoted by Reuters.</span></p>