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U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell addresses the United Nations Security Council Wednesday, Feb. 5, 2003 at U.N. headquarters. (AP Photo/Elise Amendola)
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INDEPTH: COLIN POWELL
A profile
CBC News Online | November 15, 2004
By the time the announcement was made, it was no surprise: Colin Powell would not return for a second term as secretary of state under U.S. President George W. Bush.
The signs had become more obvious in recent months. Powell took no part in the ground war that was the 2004 election campaign. In late October – less than a week before the election – Powell was sounding anything but a high-level representative of the American government.
During a 24-hour visit to China, he told journalists that there is only one China and that Taiwan is not independent. He went on to suggest that the Taiwanese and the Americans – along with the Chinese – were working to bring about the island's reunification with the mainland.
The statement was a sharp departure from American foreign policy in place since 1972 – and it angered the government of Taiwan. Later, the U.S. State Department issued a statement saying that Powell had used the wrong language and that American policy has not changed.
Powell was also said to have been upset that his trip to Athens to act as the U.S. representative at the closing ceremony of the Summer Olympics was cancelled. The decision was made in the wake of protests in Athens against U.S. foreign policy.
Two days before the closing ceremonies, Greek police used tear gas to break up a demonstration of more than 1,000 people heading toward the U.S. Embassy. Washington said the protests had nothing to do with the cancellation. The government said Powell had to deal with pressing issues in Iraq and Sudan instead.
But the most serious rift was the fallout from Powell's 2003 speech to the United Nations laying out the evidence against Iraq – evidence that led to the invasion six weeks later and that has yet to be proven.
On Feb. 5, 2003, Powell told the world community that Saddam Hussein was stockpiling weapons of mass destruction – including chemical and biological agents. He cited intelligence reports that he said found evidence of mobile weapons-making labs.
So far, no weapons of mass destruction have been found. A report by the U.S. Senate intelligence committee concluded that the intelligence that found evidence of Iraq's military might was faulty.
While publicly Powell never wavered from the need to oust Saddam, privately he is said to be suffering a lasting wound from having had to present the administration's flawed case for invading Iraq.
Powell is also reported to have had several key differences with Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld. Rumsfeld seemed to go out of his way to upset European countries that opposed the way the United States sent its troops into Iraq.
Those countries argued that the United States did not give the United Nations enough time to fully investigate Iraq's weapons capabilities. Rumsfeld referred to "old Europe" in his criticism of the opposition to the war by France and Germany, in particular.
Secretary of State Colin Powell pauses before speaking at the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg, South Africa, in this Sept. 4, 2002, photo. (AP Photo/Jon Hrusa)
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Powell managed to maintain good relations around the world while supporting Bush's Iraq policy. He was seen as a moderate in a hawkish regime.
Powell was also said to have been dismayed that he had limited influence on foreign policy. While he took many trips to world hot spots, it was always National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice at Bush's side while the television cameras were on.
Bush was the sixth president Powell served under. He played roles in the Nixon, Carter, Reagan, George H.W. Bush and Clinton presidencies as well. Powell said he never intended to serve more than one term as Washington's top diplomat.
"We came to the mutual agreement that it would be appropriate for me to leave at this time,'' he said. "I made no offer. We had pretty much come to our mutual agreement without anybody having to make any offers, counteroffers or anything like that."
Colin Powell was born in New York City on April 5, 1937, the son of Jamaican immigrants. He was educated in the city's public school system and the City College of New York, where he earned a bachelor's degree in geology.
Powell called himself an average student – not the sort of person you'd look at and think was going to be particularly successful in life.
But while at college, he took part in the officer-training program. That led to a commission as a second lieutenant when he graduated in 1958 – the beginning of a long and distinguished military career.
Powell's Washington career began after he earned an MBA at George Washington University and was promoted to the rank of major. He won a White House fellowship and was assigned to the Office of Management and Budget during the administration of President Richard Nixon.
He impressed two key men: the director and deputy director of the office – Casper Weinberger and Frank Carlucci. Both called on Powell when they served under President Ronald Reagan – Weinberger as secretary of defence, Carlucci as national security advisor.
In September 1989, the Senate confirmed Powell as the first George Bush's nominee for chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. At 52, Powell was the youngest person to serve in that role – and the first African-American to do so.
Two years later, Powell's star continued to rise as he became the face of the successful campaign to expel Iraq from Kuwait.
He retired from the post two years later. His popularity had both Republicans and Democrats trying to persuade him to run for national office. Powell had listed himself as an independent politically – although he was known to have supported the campaign of Democrat Lyndon Johnson in 1964.
In 1995, he came out as a Republican – but in early 1997, he backed President Bill Clinton, another Democrat, on some key issues. He urged the Senate to ratify a treaty outlawing poison-gas weapons, and he was the featured speaker, along with Clinton, at a summit promoting volunteerism.
In the summer of 2000, he gave the keynote address at the Republican convention that nominated George W. Bush as the party's candidate for president. In December, Bush named Powell as his choice for secretary of state, the first African-American to hold that post.
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