Colin Powell's legacy, defined by two very different wars in Iraq

Colin Powell became a household name because of the four stars on his Army uniform and his iconic statements about Iraq.

In the first Iraq war in 1991, he famously described what the U.S. would do to the Iraqi army that had invaded neighboring Kuwait: "We're going to cut it off, and then we're going to kill it."

Such chilling bravado — and the subsequent victory over Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein — made him one of the most formidable and admired public figures.

A decade later, Powell's public image lost some of its luster when he appeared at the United Nations and pointed to two large screens of satellite photographs and drawings, depicting secret facilities, mobile laboratories, trucks and rail cars.

He forcefully argued that same Iraqi leader possessed chemical, biological and perhaps nuclear weapons that made him a serious threat, and the assembled intelligence proved it.