Colin Powell, Who Shaped U.S. National Security, Dies at 84

THE NEW YORK TIMES: A former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, secretary of state and national security adviser, Mr. Powell died on Monday of complications of Covid-19, his family said.

Colin L. Powell in 2004, when he was secretary of state under President George W. Bush in the midst of the Iraq war. | Doug Mills/The New York Times
Colin L. Powell, who in four decades of public life served as the nation’s top soldier, diplomat and national security adviser, and whose speech at the United Nations in 2003 helped pave the way for the United States to go to war in Iraq, died on Monday. He was 84.

He died of complications of Covid-19, his family said in a statement. He had been fully vaccinated and was treated at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, his family said.

Mr. Powell was a path breaker serving as the country’s first African American national security adviser, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and secretary of state. Beginning with his 35 years in the Army, Mr. Powell was emblematic of the ability of minorities to use the military as a ladder of opportunity.

His was a classic American success story. Born in Harlem of Jamaican parents, Mr. Powell grew up in the South Bronx and graduated from City College of New York, joining the Army through ROTC. From a young second lieutenant commissioned in the dawn of a newly desegregated Army, Mr. Powell served two decorated combat tours in Vietnam. He later was national security adviser to President Ronald Reagan at the end of the Cold War, helping negotiate arms treaties and an era of cooperation with the Soviet president, Mikhail Gorbachev. » | Eric Schmitt | Monday, October 18, 2021

Der Irak machte ihn gross und demütigte ihn – Colin Powell ist im Alter von 84 Jahren gestorben: Colin Powell wurde nach dem ersten Golfkrieg von 1991 als Held gefeiert. Aber seine Rolle bei der Vorbereitung des zweiten Irak-Feldzugs wertete er später selbst als Schandfleck in seiner Karriere. »

Colin Powell, secrétaire d'État sous George W. Bush, est décédé du Covid-19 : Il est décédé à l'âge de 84 ans ce lundi. Connu pour son allocution de 2003 sur les armes de destruction massives prétendument détenues par l'Irak, il avait par la suite qualifié ce moment de «tache» sur sa réputation. »

Gen. Colin Powell: This Was a 'National Disgrace,' But We'll Get Through It | Morning Joe | MSNBC

Former Secretary of State Colin Powell says Wednesday was a 'national disgrace, but we'll come through it.' Secy. Powell questions the lack of organized security at the U.S. Capitol and he says that Congress must be ready to step in should Trump attempt something similar before he leaves office. Aired on 01/07/2021.

Colin Powell Explains Why Trump Shouldn't Be Re-elected

Madeleine Albright: Trump Almost a Gift to Putin

Former Secretaries of State Madeleine Albright and Colin Powell talk to CNN's Fareed Zakaria about how President Donald Trump has altered America's role in the world.

U.S. Linguist Noam Chomsky Compares Colin Powell to Von Ribbentrop and the U.S. to Nazi Germany (January 29, 2013)

Colin Powell Accuses GOP Of Racism: They 'Still Look Down On Minorities

Lies That Launched a War
The 2003 invasion of Iraq was sanctioned largely because of claims the country had weapons of mass destruction. The source of some of the alleged intelligence behind the claims was an Iraqi defector living in Germany, someone who has now admitted the evidence he submitted was false. Al Jazeera's Barnaby Phillips reports

Curveball: How US Was Duped by Iraqi Fantasist Looking to Topple Saddam
THE GUARDIAN: Rafid Ahmed Alwan al-Janabi let imagination run wild and became main source for Colin Powell's case for war in 2003

In a small flat in the German town of Erlangen in February 2003, an out-of-work Iraqi sat down with his wife to watch one of the world's most powerful men deliver the speech of his career on live TV.

As US secretary of state, Colin Powell gathered his notes in front of the United Nations security council, the man watching — Rafid Ahmed Alwan al-Janabi, known to the west's intelligence services as "Curveball" — had more than an inkling of what was to come. He was, after all, Powell's main source, a man his German handlers had feted as a new "Deep throat" — an agent so pivotal that he could bring down a government.

As Curveball watched Powell make the US case to invade Iraq, he was hiding an admission that he has not made until now: that nearly every word he had told his interrogators from Germany's secret service, the BND, was a lie.

Everything he had said about the inner workings of Saddam Hussein's biological weapons programme was a flight of fantasy - one that, he now claims was aimed at ousting the Iraqi dictator. Janabi, a chemical engineering graduate who had worked in the Iraqi industry, says he looked on in shock as Powell's presentation revealed that the Bush administration's hawkish decisionmakers had swallowed the lot. Something else left him even more amazed; until that point he had not met a US official, let alone been interviewed by one.

"I had the chance to fabricate something to topple the regime," he told the Guardian in a series of interviews carried out in his native Arabic and German. "I and my sons are proud of that, and we are proud that we were the reason to give Iraq the margin of democracy." >>> Martin Chulov and Helen Pidd in Karlsruhe | Tuesday, February 15, 2011

Watch Guardian video here

Bush Knew Guantánamo Prisoners Were Innocent, Former Colin Powell Aide Tells Court
MAIL ONLINE: George W Bush knew that hundreds of detainees held at Guantánamo Bay were innocent - but covered the fact up for political reasons, a top former aide has told a U.S. court.

Retired Army Col. Lawrence B. Wilkerson, who served as chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell, testified that officials 'knew that they had seized and were holding innocent men at Guantanamo Bay'.

'I discussed the issue of the Guantánamo detainees with Secretary Powell,' he said. 'I learnt that it was his view that it was not just Vice-President [Dick] Cheney and [Defense] Secretary [Donald] Rumsfeld, but also President Bush who was involved in all of the Guantánamo decision making.'

'They simply refused to release them out of fear of political repercussions,' he continued.

Colonel Wilkerson heaped most of his criticism on the heads of of Mr Rumsfeld and Mr Cheney, saying they knew that the majority of the 742 detainees sent to Guantánamo in 2002 were not guilty of any crimes. >>> Mail Foreign Service | Saturday, April 10, 2010

Colin Powell Joins the Obama Movement Backing Gays in Military
TIMES ONLINE: “You don’t have to be straight in the military,” Barry Goldwater said in 1994. “You just have to be able to shoot straight.”

Sixteen years on, the conservative icon and former presidential candidate can look down from the hereafter on an American cultural scene where the President and his top commanders at last agree that gays should be able to serve openly in the armed forces.

They have been joined this week by General Colin Powell, the former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who once called homosexuality “a behavioural characteristic” unlike such “benign characteristics” as skin colour.

General Powell’s opposition to repealing the longstanding ban on gays in the military helped to produce the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” law, the death knell of which President Obama announced in his State of the Union address. With General Powell’s change of heart — which aides said came two years ago, even though he waited until Wednesday to announce it — the US Congress is the only remaining obstacle to ending the ban.

For decades, the status of gays and lesbians in uniform has created an apparently unbridgeable gulf between liberals who note that gays are allowed to die for their country but not to be open about their sexuality, and social conservatives who insist that lifting the ban would lead to sexual harassment cases and undermine the effectiveness of fighting units.

It is a potentially explosive political issue that President Clinton tried and failed to resolve in 1994, and that Mr Obama must still sell to Republicans and some Democrats in the centre. >>> Giles Whittell, Washington | Friday, February 05, 2010

Colin Powell Condemns Dick Cheney 'Diktats'
THE TELEGRAPH: Colin Powell, the former Secretary of State in the Bush administration, has launched an attack on former Vice President Dick Cheney and radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh, accusing them of issuing "diktats" that will make Republicans unelectable.

Colin Powell has attacked former Vice President Dick Cheney. Photo courtesy of The Telegraph
His stern words threatened to widen a rift within the party that was laid bare last week when Mr Cheney became the most prominent foreign policy critic of President Barack Obama, to the chagrin of moderates and to the delight of the Right.

Mr Powell, a moderate who publicly announced just before last year's presidential election he that would vote for Mr Obama, the Democratic candidate, rather than his old friend John McCain, insisted: "I am still a Republican."

The former Gulf war commander lambasted Mr Cheney for saying that he believed "Colin had already left the party" and Mr Limbaugh for saying that he'd supported Mr Obama "solely based on race" and should become a Democrat.

He told CBS television they were "not members of the membership committee of the Republican Party" arguing that the party needed to build a broad base of support rather than falling back on conservative principles.

"Rush will not get his wish, and Mr. Cheney was misinformed. I am still a Republican", he said. "I would like to point out that in the course of my 50 years of voting for presidents, I have voted for the person I thought was best qualified at that time to lead the nation. >>> By Toby Harnden in Washington | Sunday, May 24, 2009

Black to Black: Powell to Back Obama's White House Bid
THE SUNDAY TELEGRAPH: One has held high office in both the United States armed forces and President George W Bush's Republican administration. The other, a Democrat, is seeking to become America's first black president.

Now Washington is buzzing with talk that Barack Obama, the candidate for the White House, and Colin Powell, the former general and secretary of state, may join forces.

Last week, Mr Powell revealed that he has been advising the senator from Illinois on foreign policy - provoking a flurry of speculation about the plans and ambitions of both men.

Mr Powell, 70, who left office in January 2005 under a cloud left by the war in Iraq, has served three Republican presidents, but made clear that he is considering backing a Democrat to succeed his former boss, George W Bush. Powell ready to jump on Obama bandwagon (more) By Tim Shipman

Mark Alexander