Former US Secretary of State, Colin Powell dies of COVID-19 complications

Former popular United States Secretary of State, Colin Powell has died of COVID-19 complications. He gave up the ghost on Monday at the age of 84, his family announced.<br />The first African-American secretary of state in 2001 under Republican President George W Bush was fully vaccinated. <br />“We have lost a remarkable and loving husband, father, grandfather and a great American,” the family said in a statement, thanking the staff at the Walter Reid Medical Center “for their caring treatment”.<br />Obituary: Colin Powell<br />George W Bush was among the first to pay tribute to “a great public servant” as well as “a family man and a friend” who “was such a favourite of presidents that he earned the Presidential Medal of Freedom – twice”.<br />Former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair – who worked closely with Powell during the early years of the Iraq War – said he was someone of “immense capability and integrity” who was “a great companion, with a lovely and self-deprecating sense of humour”.<br />Mr Powell, a moderate Republican who broke with his party to endorse Barack Obama in 2008, became a trusted military adviser to a number of leading US politicians.<br />He also saw service and was wounded in Vietnam, an experience that later helped define his own military and political strategies.<br />However, he would say himself that his own legacy had been damaged by a speech to the United Nations Security Council which used faulty intelligence to back the invasion of Iraq.