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The funeral for Colin L. Powell, former secretary of state, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and national security adviser, brought out a Washington that barely exists anymore: Republicans and Democrats, including President Biden and two of his predecessors, uniformed military and diplomats, and people on all sides of the Iraq war.
No one would have been more amused by the assemblage than Mr. Powell himself, who often ran a smiling, half-whispered commentary on the city’s temporary loyalties and back-room machinations. Yet on Friday, the Washington National Cathedral was filled with them all — former officials who were at Mr. Powell’s side in the Persian Gulf War and on the seventh floor of the State Department, where he often waged a behind-the-scenes battle for influence in the George W. Bush White House.
Mr. Biden did not speak, nor did the two former presidents who attended, Barack Obama and Mr. Bush, who made Mr. Powell his first secretary of state. Instead, among the eulogists was a Democrat who had often clashed with Mr. Powell over the general’s reluctance to commit American forces to battles when the general, seared by the experience of his service in Vietnam, did not see a clear, successful outcome.
“He said I almost gave him an aneurysm,” the Democrat, Madeleine K. Albright, who served as secretary of state in the Clinton administration, told the mourners, recalling Mr. Powell’s reaction after she famously asked him, “What’s the point of having this superb military you’re always talking about if we can’t use it?”
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Credit…Jason Andrew for The New York Times
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