Irish Examiner view: Highs and lows of a patriot

Colin Powell told George W Bush before he put boots on the ground against Saddam Hussein that “if you break it, you own it”, a prediction that has returned to haunt the West.

The death of Colin Powell from complications associated with Covid-19 marks the passing of a fine man and patriot who would have made an excellent President of the United States.

Powell, 84, was the first black man to become US secretary of state and his country’s top military officer, opening the door for other African-Americans such as Condoleezza Rice and Barack Obama.

After overseeing Operation Desert Storm, the first Iraq War, and organising his country’s diplomatic response to 9/11 he championed the US invasion of Iraq in 2003 which he soon acknowledged to be based on faulty intelligence.

“It has blotted my record . . . and there’s nothing I can do to change that. All I can say is that I gave it the best analysis I could,” he said at the time.

But he also told George W Bush before he put boots on the ground against Saddam Hussein that “if you break it, you own it”, a prediction that has returned to haunt the West.