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Colin Powell, top diplomat who argued for US invasion of Iraq, dies at 84

Powell would later call his now-infamous UN Security Council speech, which sought to build international consensus for the Iraq war in February 2003, a "blot" on his record.
Former Gen. Colin Powell (Ret.) onstage at A Capitol Fourth concert at the U.S. Capitol, West Lawn, on July 4, 2016 in Washington, DC.

Colin Powell, the retired four-star Army general who oversaw US operations during the 1991 Persian Gulf War and whose United Nations speech in 2003 helped sell the American-led invasion of Iraq, died on Monday from COVID-19, his family said. The 84-year-old was fully vaccinated. 

“We have lost a remarkable and loving husband, father, grandfather and a great American,” the Powell family said in a Facebook statement Monday morning. 

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