Former Secretary of State Colin Powell speaks at Willamette University in Salem on Friday. AP Photo

SALEM —Despite protests from some students and faculty members, former Secretary of State Colin Powell received a mostly warm reception from about 1,000 Willamette University students Friday who heard him defend the Bush administration’s decision to invade Iraq.

“It is important to stay the course” in Iraq, Powell said during a 50-minute campus forum during which he was quizzed by students about prospects for ending the war in Iraq anytime soon.

Earlier this week, Powell’s former chief of staff, Lawrence Wilkerson, said President Bush was “too aloof, too distant from the details” of post-war planning, allowing underlings to exploit Bush’s detachment and make bad decisions. Wilkerson also suggested that Powell may agree with him that Bush was too hands off about Iraq.

However, Powell made no similar comment during his stop at Willamette University. He did say, though, that some “big mistakes” were made in the conduct of the war in the first year but that “we are correcting them now” in the effort to build a new Iraq.

“We cannot walk away and let murderers impose their will on 25 million people,” Powell said of the stubborn insurgency that he said is mainly made up of “dissaffected people left over from the previous regime” of Saddam Hussein.

After the student forum on the Willamette campus, Powell attended a private fundraising event for the school that officials said was expected to raise nearly $275,000 for the private university, which has 1,600 undergraduate students.

Some faculty members objected to Powell’s visit, saying the school shouldn’t associate itself with Powell because of his role in the Bush administration’s drive to invade Iraq.

History professor William Smaldone said Friday he had no problem with Powell speaking on campus with students, but he helped push a nonbinding faculty resolution “strongly objecting” to the school’s use of Powell at the fundraiser.

“Mr. Powell is one of the persons who’s responsible for unleashing this war for bogus reasons,” Smaldone said. “He is not the kind of person we should hold up as a model for our students.”

But Matt Buehler, a 22-year-old senior from Lake Oswego, said most Willamette students were glad to have Powell on campus, and that 700 students signed petitions to show their support for him.

“The faculty is way out of touch with the student body on this,” Buehler said. “Colin Powell is a model of what it means to be in public service.”

Powell, in his remarks to the students, said he realizes that the American public is becoming increasingly worried about the Iraq war, which has claimed 2,127 American lives since the U.S.-led invasion began in March 2003.

Powell said he believes there might be a reduction in U.S. troop levels next year, but that military involvement will be needed there for some time to come.

“We have an obligation to stay there until the Iraqi military is capable of doing the job,” he said.