Trailblazing warrior who shaped U.S. national security dies at 84

A secretary of state and chairman of the Joints Chiefs of Staff, Colin L. Powell served in top national security roles and helped make a later-regretted case for war in Iraq. Powell, who died of COVID-19, was fully vaccinated but was undergoing treatment for cancer.

Colin Powell, the trailblazing soldier and diplomat whose sterling reputation of service to Republican and Democratic presidents was stained by his faulty claims to justify the 2003 U.S. war in Iraq, died Monday of COVID-19 complications. He was 84.

A veteran of the Vietnam War, Powell spent 35 years in the Army and rose to the rank of four-star general before becoming the first Black chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. His oversight of the U.S. invasion of Kuwait to oust the Iraqi army in 1991 made him a household name, prompting speculation for nearly a decade that he might run for president, a course he ultimately decided against.

He instead joined President George W. Bush’s administration in 2001 as secretary of state, the first Black person to represent the U.S. government on the world stage. Powell’s tenure, however, was marred by his 2003 address to the United Nations Security Council in which he cited faulty information to claim that Saddam Hussein had secretly stashed weapons of mass destruction. Such weapons never

MARY ALTAFFER AP file | 2003 Gen. Colin L. Powell rose rapidly through the Army to become the youngest and first Black chairman of the Joint Chiefs.

UDO WEITZ AP file | Dec. 30, 1986 In this 1986, file photo, then-Lt. Gen. Colin Powell, commander of the 5th U.S. corps, salutes while his wife Alma stands at attention during a farewell ceremony in Frankfurt, Germany.