Former United States Secretary of State Colin Powell said on Thursday he supports President Barack Obama for a second term.

“I voted for him in 2008, and I plan to stick with him in 2012,” Powell said Thursday morning on American television network CBS.

Powell, a Republican, crossed party lines in 2008 to support Obama over Republican candidate Senator John McCain.

While Powell says the unemployment rate in the US is still "too high," overall he says the economy is beginning to improve.

"When [President Obama] took over, the country was in very, very difficult straits, we were in one of the worst recessions we had seen in recent times, close to a depression," Powell said. "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.”

Powell, a retired four-star Army general and former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, also credited Obama with ending the war in Iraq and winding down the war in Afghanistan.

Powell said he was concerned about Republican candidate Mitt Romney’s changing views on foreign affairs. “The governor who was saying things at the debate Monday night…was saying things that were quite different from what he said earlier. I’m not quite sure which Governor Romney we would be getting with respect to foreign policy.”