Colin Powell has died of COVID-19 complications, family says

WASHINGTON — Colin Powell, former Joint Chiefs chairman and secretary of state, has died from COVID-19 complications, his family said Monday. He was 84.

In an announcement on social media, the family said Powell had been fully vaccinated.

“We have lost a remarkable and loving husband, father and grandfather and a great American,” the family said.

Powell was the first African American to serve as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and secretary of state.

But his reputation also suffered a painful setback when, in 2003, Powell went before the U.N. Security Council and made the case for U.S. war against Iraq. He cited faulty information claiming Saddam Hussein had secretly stashed away weapons of mass destruction. Iraq’s claims that it had not represented “a web of lies,” he told the world body.

Powell came to Union City in 2013 to visit the Colin Powell Elementary School in Union City which is named after him, according to NJ.com.