First US black secretary of state Colin Powell dies of COVID-19 complications
- 18 Oct 2021
Gulf Today Report
Colin Powell, America's first black secretary of state and senior military officer, died on Monday. Powell died of COVID-19-realted complications at the age of 84, his family said in a statement.
“We would like to thank the medical staff at Walter Reed National Medical Center for their thoughtful treatment. We have lost an amazing and loving husband, father, grandfather and great American, ” Powell's family said in a post on their Facebook page.
As a Four-Star General of the Army, he served as Chairman of the Army Joint Chiefs of Staff under President George HW Bush during the 1991 Gulf War in which US led forces expelled Iraqi troops from neighbouring Kuwait.
Powell, a moderate and pragmatic Republican, then served as Secretary of State to President George W. Bush.