Biden leads tributes to his ‘dear friend’ Colin Powell

Joe Biden hailed “a dear friend and patriot of unmatched honour and dignity” as he led tributes to former Republican secretary of state Colin Powell, who died on Monday from complications from Covid-19, aged 84.

The US president said: “As a Senator, I worked closely with him when he served as national security advisor, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, and as secretary of state. Over our many years working together – even in disagreement – Colin was always someone who gave you his best and treated you with respect.”

The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, said the world had lost an “extraordinary leader and a great man” in the retired four-star general.

Powell was chairman of the joint chiefs of staff between 1989 and 1993, when he presided over the invasion of Panama in 1989 and the first Gulf war in 1990-91. But it was as secretary of state in the buildup to the contentious invasion of Iraq in 2003 that Powell was the face of the George W Bush administration’s attempt to get the world community to back the invasion, based on false claims of Iraq’s possession of weapons of mass destruction.