US Presidential Election 2012: Colin Powell Endorses Obama for President

With only 12 days left until the presidential election, Former U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell has endorsed President Obama.

"I voted for him in 2008 and I plan to stick with him in 2012 and I'll be voting for he and for Vice President Joe Biden next month," Powell said on 'CBS This Morning."

Powell said that when Obama was elected four years ago, "the country was in very very difficult strait."

"We were in the one of the worst recessions we had seen in recent times, close to a depression," Powell said. "The fiscal system was collapsing. Wall Street was in chaos, we had 800,000 jobs lost in that first month of the Obama administration and unemployment peaked a few months later at 10 percent. So we were in real trouble. The auto industry was collapsing, the housing was start[ing] to collapse and we were in very difficult straits. And I saw over the next several years, stabilization come back in the financial community, housing is now starting to pick up after four years, it's starting to pick up. Consumer confidence is rising."

Powell did, however, say that the unemployment rate is too high and people are still hurting in housing, but "generally we've come out of the dive and we're starting to gain altitude."

On foreign policy, Powell praised the commander-in-chief for ending the wars and not getting "us into any new wars."

"I think that the actions he has taken with respect to protecting us from terrorism have been very very solid," Powell said. "And so, I think we ought to keep on the track that we are on."

On Mitt Romney, Powell said he is "not quite sure which Gov. Romney we would be getting with respect to foreign policy."

"One day he has a certain strong view about staying in Afghanistan but then on Monday night he agrees with the withdrawal, same thing in Iraq, Powell said. "On almost every issue that was discussed on Monday night, Governor Romney agreed with the President with some nuances. But this is quite a different set of foreign policy views than he had earlier in the campaign. And my concern ... is that sometimes I don't sense that he has thought through these issues as thoroughly as he should have."

According to Powell, despite his choice for president, he is still a member of the GOP.

"I think I'm a Republican of a more moderate mold," he said. "That's something of a dying breed I'm sorry to say."