Retired general Colin Powell, the former US secretary of state and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff who served under both Bush presidents, has died of complications from Covid-19, his family said on Monday. He was 84.
“He was fully vaccinated. We want to thank the medical staff at Walter Reed National Medical Centre for their caring treatment,” a family message on his Facebook page said.
“We have lost a remarkable and loving husband, father, grandfather and a great American.”
US media reported that Powell had multiple myeloma, a cancer of plasma cells that reduces the body's ability to fight infection.
"Time and again, he put country before self, before party, before all else—in uniform and out—and it earned him the universal respect of the American people," President Joe Biden said as tributes from world leaders poured in.
As a four-star army general, Powell — who leaves behind a widow, Alma Powell — was chairman of the military's 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 Republican and a pragmatist, later served as secretary of state under President George W Bush.
In a statement, Mr Bush said he and former first lady Laura Bush were “deeply saddened” by Powell’s death. Mr Bush said he was “a great public servant” and was “widely respected at home and abroad”.
A decorated soldier who started as a second lieutenant, a rank earned as a Reserve Officer Training Corps student at City College of New York, Powell served in Vietnam, West Germany and South Korea before being put in charge of the Gulf War.
In the allied effort to help Saudi Arabia defend Kuwait against Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, he developed the so-called Powell Doctrine.
It called for using overwhelming force, such as “shock-and-awe” battle tactics, to assure victory and minimise casualties once diplomatic solutions prove unworkable. He styled himself the “reluctant warrior”.
“Many of my generation, the career captains, majors, and lieutenant colonels seasoned in [Vietnam], vowed that when our turn came to call the shots, we would not quietly acquiesce in half-hearted warfare for half-baked reasons that the American people could not understand,” he wrote in My American Journey, published in 1995.
Such idealism proved elusive, however, in the 2003 Iraq War to oust Hussein.
As secretary of state, Powell was given the task of justifying an allied invasion. In a speech to the United Nations that included pictures he said were of mobile arms laboratories, he asserted there was “no doubt” that Hussein had hidden chemical and biological weapons.
But the following year, Powell told Congress that the evidence he had been given was “wrong,” and the speech “a blot” on his record.
“It was painful,” he told interviewer Barbara Walters in 2006. “It is painful now.”
British former prime minister Tony Blair, whose unflinching support of George W Bush provided the Iraq invasion with vital international backing, remembered Powell as a "towering figure in American military and political leadership".
"He was wonderful to work with, he inspired loyalty and respect and was one of those leaders who always treated those under them with kindness and concern," Mr Blair said.
Powell had two other blots on an otherwise lauded record. In the first, he was assigned to investigate the 1968 US massacre at My Lai in Vietnam and found no wrongdoing.
And as former president Ronald Reagan’s national security adviser, he was part of an administration that illegally traded arms for hostages in what became known as the Iran-Contra scandal. He was not personally implicated in either case.
After his retirement, Powell leaned in a more liberal direction, quietly campaigning against the nomination of John Bolton to be ambassador to the UN.
Born in New York in 1937 to Jamaican immigrant parents, Powell was for decades one of America's most prominent black figures.
He supported affirmative action and criticised the Bush administration on its treatment of detainees at the Guantanamo Bay detention facility and its handling of impoverished victims of Hurricane Katrina. In 2008 and 2012, he endorsed Barack Obama, a Democrat, for president.
In 2008, he spoke out against Islamophobia after Republican critics of Mr Obama falsely said he was Muslim.
“Is there something wrong with being a Muslim in this country? The answer is no. That's not America," Powell said.
Illustrating his deep misgivings about the evolution of the Republican Party as it lurched rightward in recent years, Powell endorsed Democrats Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election and Joe Biden last year against Donald Trump.
Powell called Mr Trump a liar who presented a danger to the United States.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken paid tribute to Powell in a televised address, calling him "simply and completely a leader".
"He treated people the way he expected them to treat each other and he made sure they knew he would always have their back. His people would walk through walls for him," Mr Blinken said.
Secretary of defence Lloyd Austin said there will "never be another Colin Powell".
"Generations of young leaders will continue to look to his example and his character as the foundation for their own success," he said in a statement.
Timeline
2012-2015
The company offers payments/bribes to win key contracts in the Middle East
May 2017
The UK SFO officially opens investigation into Petrofac’s use of agents, corruption, and potential bribery to secure contracts
September 2021
Petrofac pleads guilty to seven counts of failing to prevent bribery under the UK Bribery Act
October 2021
Court fines Petrofac £77 million for bribery. Former executive receives a two-year suspended sentence
December 2024
Petrofac enters into comprehensive restructuring to strengthen the financial position of the group
May 2025
The High Court of England and Wales approves the company’s restructuring plan
July 2025
The Court of Appeal issues a judgment challenging parts of the restructuring plan
August 2025
Petrofac issues a business update to execute the restructuring and confirms it will appeal the Court of Appeal decision
October 2025
Petrofac loses a major TenneT offshore wind contract worth €13 billion. Holding company files for administration in the UK. Petrofac delisted from the London Stock Exchange
November 2025
180 Petrofac employees laid off in the UAE
Who's who in Yemen conflict
Houthis: Iran-backed rebels who occupy Sanaa and run unrecognised government
Yemeni government: Exiled government in Aden led by eight-member Presidential Leadership Council
Southern Transitional Council: Faction in Yemeni government that seeks autonomy for the south
Habrish 'rebels': Tribal-backed forces feuding with STC over control of oil in government territory
Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
Pharaoh's curse
British aristocrat Lord Carnarvon, who funded the expedition to find the Tutankhamun tomb, died in a Cairo hotel four months after the crypt was opened.
He had been in poor health for many years after a car crash, and a mosquito bite made worse by a shaving cut led to blood poisoning and pneumonia.
Reports at the time said Lord Carnarvon suffered from “pain as the inflammation affected the nasal passages and eyes”.
Decades later, scientists contended he had died of aspergillosis after inhaling spores of the fungus aspergillus in the tomb, which can lie dormant for months. The fact several others who entered were also found dead withiin a short time led to the myth of the curse.
'The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas are Setting up a Generation for Failure'
Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt, Penguin Randomhouse
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
