Emblematic figure of the government of George W. Bush, marked by false statements on weapons of mass destruction in order to justify the military invasion of the United States in Iraq in the wake of the attacks of September 11, the former secretary of U.S. state Colin Powell died Monday from complications from COVID-19, his family said.
He was 84 years old. He had been vaccinated twice against the disease, said his relatives, but he had lived for several years with a diagnosis of multiple myeloma, a serious cancer of the plasma cells, and a necessarily weakened immune system.
” [Colin Powell] was a great and highly respected civil servant, at home and abroad, ”summed up George W. Bush in a joint statement with his wife, Laura. “He was so appreciated by presidents that he was twice awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom,” a very high honor in the United States.
The current Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, paid tribute to him on Monday speaking of an “extraordinary leader and great man” still beloved within the State Department. He recalled his view of the world in which “war and military action” should only be used as a “last resort” and reiterated that world security depends on the United States’ commitment to peace and through united allies.
The current Secretary of Defense, Lloyd J. Austin, indicated on C-Span that the death had caused “a hole in the [son] heart “. “I have lost a personal friend and a great mentor. He always took time for me, and I could always turn to him on difficult issues, ”he said.
“His legacy and unparalleled service will not be forgotten,” said former Vice President Dick Cheney.
Colin Powell was “a prominent figure in American military and political leadership” and “someone of extremely good skill and integrity,” said Tony Blair, former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom during the Iraq War.
From Harlem to Washington
The first African-American to take up the post of Secretary of State – that is, that of the head of the diplomacy of the United States -, Colin Powell was born in 1937 in the district of Harlem in New York, in a modest family of Jamaican immigrants. Coincidence and coincidence: his father had his first job in the New York bottling plant of the Pepsi-Cola company, located on the banks of the East River, just opposite the headquarters of the United Nations ( UN).
Trained in geology, Colin Powell mainly made a career in the army after a debut marked by the violence of Vietnam in 1962, followed by a rapid rise in the hierarchy. He was to become Ronald Reagan’s National Security Advisor, then Chief of Staff of the United States Armed Forces under George HW Bush and Bill Clinton, from 1989 to 1993, before retiring.
In 1991, he will reveal himself to the Americans as the military face of the first war in Iraq and at that time develop a doctrine, the “Powell doctrine”, according to which the United States must strive before entering into conflict. with a foreign country, to set clear political objectives, to commit massive means to guarantee victory and, prudently, to plan a strategy of withdrawal.
The Iraq War
Brought back to the forefront in 2001 by George W. Bush as Secretary of State, Colin Powell’s legacy will nonetheless be marked by his 2003 speech before the UN Security Council aimed at justifying the US military intervention in Iraq after the September 11 attacks and the ensuing war on terror.
As the idea of a military attack on Iraq divides the international community, Colin Powell then hammers in front of the assembly the false information that Saddam Hussein has in his possession weapons of mass destruction and that these weapons could be shared with terrorist groups, which would threaten the United States and Europe, he said.
Two years later, a government report admitted that the intelligence services had been “completely wrong” on this point. Colin Powell admitted that this speech before the UN represented a “stain” on his service and said he regretted having participated in this manipulation of public opinion in order to justify going to war. “I regret it now that I know the information was false,” he told Larry King in 2010 on CNN. “I will always be considered the one who brought the case before the international community. “
In the Memoirs he published in 2012, entitled It Worked for Me, the former Secretary of State had even admitted that “this event” would necessarily occupy an “important paragraph in [sa] obituary ”.
A moderate
Regarded as a moderate Republican, Colin Powell supported the presidential candidacies of Democrats Barack Obama (in 2008) and Joe Biden (in 2020), then completely detached himself from his party in the aftermath of the insurgency of Donald supporters. Trump against the US Congress on January 6.
On CNN, he admitted that Republican elected officials who refused to condemn the false speech of the former US president on electoral fraud have fueled and encouraged this violence. “I can no longer consider myself a Republican,” he said then.
In previous months, Colin Powell had called the former reality TV star turned president a “national disgrace” and had supported Congress’ two attempts to impeach him.
The former secretary of state took his last breath at Walter Reed National Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland, the military hospital where US presidents are being treated. “We have lost a loving husband, a great father and grandfather and most of all a great American,” his family summed up on Facebook.