leavenworth washington

Leavenworth, Washington
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Leavenworth, Washington

Location of Leavenworth, Washington
Coordinates: 47°35′47″N 120°39′55″W / 47.59639, -120.66528
Country United States
State Washington
County Chelan
Area
- Total 1.3 sq mi (3.2 km²)
- Land 1.2 sq mi (3.2 km²)
- Water 0.0 sq mi (0.0 km²)
Elevation 1,171 ft (357 m)
Population (2000)
- Total 2,074
- Density 1,675.6/sq mi (647.0/km²)
Time zone Pacific (PST) (UTC-8)
- Summer (DST) PDT (UTC-7)
ZIP code 98826
Area code(s) 509
FIPS code 53-38845GR2
GNIS feature ID 1521981GR3

Leavenworth's main street reflects its modelling on a Bavarian villageLeavenworth is a city in Chelan County, Washington, United States. The population was 2,074 at the 2000 census.

Contents
1 History
2 Geography
3 Demographics
4 External links
5 Notes



[edit] History
Leavenworth was officially incorporated on September 5, 1906. A small timber community, it became the headquarters of the Great North Railroad in the early 1900s. The railroad relocated to Wenatchee in the 1920s, greatly affecting Leavenworth's economy. The city struggled until 1962, when the Project LIFE (Leavenworth Improvement For Everyone) Committee was formed to transform the city into a mock Bavarian village to revitalize its economy.[1] In this same vein, Leavenworth is home to the Leavenworth Nutcracker Museum, which opened in 1995 and contains more than 5,000 nutcrackers dating from prehistoric to modern.[2] Leavenworth's annual Oktoberfest celebration is claimed to be one of the most attended in the world outside Munich, Germany.[3] or the Kitchener-Waterloo Oktoberfest held in Ontario, Canada where attendance last year (2006) was expected to top 700,000.


[edit] Geography
Leavenworth is located at 47°35′47″N, 120°39′55″W (47.596341, -120.665224)GR1.

According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 3.2 km² (1.2 mi²). 3.2 km² (1.2 mi²) of it is land and 0.80% is water.


[edit] Demographics
As of the censusGR2 of 2000, there are 2,074 people, 899 households, and 543 families residing in the city. The population density is 645.8/km² (1,675.6/mi²). There are 1,107 housing units at an average density of 344.7/km² (894.4/mi²). The racial makeup of the city is 93.64% White, 0.10% African American, 1.45% Native American, 0.34% Asian, 0.10% Pacific Islander, 3.04% from other races, and 1.35% from two or more races. 6.17% of the population are Hispanic or Latino of any race.

There are 899 households out of which 28.7% have children under the age of 18 living with them, 46.4% are married couples living together, 10.9% have a female householder with no husband present, and 39.5% are non-families. 32.9% of all households are made up of individuals and 16.7% have someone living alone who is 65 years of age or older. The average household size is 2.31 and the average family size is 2.93.

In the city the population is spread out with 24.8% under the age of 18, 6.5% from 18 to 24, 25.0% from 25 to 44, 25.0% from 45 to 64, and 18.6% who are 65 years of age or older. The median age is 41 years. For every 100 females there are 88.2 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there are 83.2 males.

The median income for a household in the city is $35,692, and the median income for a family is $48,347. Males have a median income of $35,165 versus $23,854 for females. The per capita income for the city is $18,709. 8.3% of the population and 5.2% of families are below the poverty line. Out of the total population, 9.5% of those under the age of 18 and 12.6% of those 65 and older are living below the poverty line.

Pakistan strongman Pervez Musharraf stepped down as army chief Wednesday after more than nine years in that position, handing control of the military to Gen. Ishfaq Parvez Kayani, former head of Pakistan's notorious intelligence agency, the ISI. More on that in a moment.

Musharraf's resignation as army chief is to be applauded as a step in the right direction in re-establishing democracy, although analysts point out that this is more of a cosmetic exercise as long as he continues holding on to the office of president. Musharraf may come from the military, but he's wasted no time learning the tricks of sly politicians.


"He has cleverly accumulated all the powers of martial law administrator in that office, with the authority to remove any civilian government at any time," said Sajjan M. Gohel, a specialist on Pakistan with the London-based Asia-Pacific Foundation.


To pacify Washington, who has been generous in funding Musharraf's government to the tune of $10 billion since 2001, the Pakistani president announced that the elections planned for January 2008, would proceed as planned. But critics say these elections will be a sham.


Says Gohel: "Washington and London must insist that all the judges in the Supreme Court Musharraf illegally sacked and replaced with handpicked puppets on Nov. 3, are reinstated, the subservient caretaker government and election commissioner are replaced by genuinely impartial ones, the original constitution is fully restored, all the thousands detained without charge are released, and all the independent television stations he closed are allowed to operate freely."


Anything short of that will fail to guarantee free, fair, and transparent elections in Pakistan. "The whole process will be a sham," Gohel told the Middle East Times.


Pakistan's judiciary represented the only branch of government in which the people had faith in, until Musharraf's Nov. 3 coup. "It is crucially important that the West insists Musharraf completely restores that," said Gohel.


"Musharraf is a consummate politician, who in pursuit of personal power has usurped democracy in Pakistan, manipulated the constitution and the entire nation, sold himself as an ally in the war on terrorism, and for which he has handsomely been paid over $11 billion in aid," said Gohel. Yet, all intelligence estimates indicate that Pakistan continues to be at the epicenter for al-Qaida, the Taliban, and the global jihadist movement.


"The West must not allow itself and Pakistan to continue to be hoodwinked by Musharraf," warned Gohel. "He is about to declare himself as president for another term with the assistance of a sham poll and a stacked judiciary, a maneuver designed to continue his dictatorial rule."


According to Gohel, the United States has provided Musharraf with $26 million to ensure that a proper election system was put in place. All of that money has been spent without anyone quite knowing where it went. Senator Tom Daschle, D-SD, led a delegation in October of the National Democratic Institute from Washington to Pakistan and discovered shocking discrepancies in the electoral system.


The European Union has become so disillusioned with Musharraf and skeptical that fair elections will take place that Brussels canceled plans to send election monitors, according to Balthasar Benz the chargé d'affaires of the European Commission delegation in Pakistan.


Again Gohel: "Musharraf had intentionally amended the constitution thereby ensuring that neither Nawaz Sharif nor Benazir Bhutto can aspire to become prime minister again. Courts controlled by Musharraf ensured Sharif's conviction on criminal charges in 1999 and anyone with a conviction is automatically barred from standing for election. Also, under the changes Benazir Bhutto cannot become prime minister as the new rules forbid anyone from holding that office for a third term."


In resigning his position as army chief Musharraf appointed Gen. Kayani, the former head of Pakistan's Inter-Service Intelligence agency, the ISI.


"Musharraf should beware," said Gohel. Kayani, according to the expert, has kept an open line of communications with Sharif and Bhutto.


Kayani was the only one among all of Musharraf's handpicked military and intelligence chiefs who did not sign the affidavit against the Supreme Court chief justice Iftikhar Chaudhry. Army House sources say that Kayani was the only one who did not utter even a single word.


Kayani, who was partly trained at the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, is looked upon favorably by the U.S. administration of George W. Bush. It should not pass without notice that during his visit to Pakistan last week, Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte had two long meetings with Kayani and only a single cursory formal one with Musharraf. "This would have been unthinkable just a few weeks ago," explained Gohel, adding it could be a sign that Washington has accepted that Musharraf is "in meltdown mode" and could be grooming a successor.


The irony - and dilemma - for Washington is that under Kayani's tenure as head of the ISI, both al-Qaida and the Taliban, with whom the ISI has always had close contact, have according to U.S. National Intelligence Estimate become more entrenched in Pakistan.


In backing Kayani over Musharraf Washington could be jumping from the frying pan into the
day after resigning as army chief, Pervez Musharraf was sworn in as a civilian president Thursday, leaving him with vastly reduced powers and Washington with a far more complex Pakistan to deal with in its fight against al Qaeda and the Taliban.

In his inaugural address, Musharraf welcomed the return from exile of his old foes, former Prime Ministers Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif, saying it was "good" for political reconciliation.

However, neither was present at the ceremony in the state palace in Islamabad, and it remained unclear whether the changeover would defuse the threat of a boycott of forthcoming parliamentary elections. Such a move would undercut Musharraf's effort to legitimize his rule through a democratic ballot.

"This is a milestone in the transition of Pakistan to the complete essence of democracy," Musharraf told an audience of government officials, foreign diplomats and military generals. "Elections will be held in January come whatever may."

Bowing reluctantly to pressure at home and abroad, Musharraf, 64, relinquished his military role in a somber ceremony on Wednesday, ending eight years of military rule. He turned over control of the army to Gen. Ashfaq Kayani, 55, a former head of Pakistan's premier intelligence agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence.

The move sets up the potential of competing power centers in Pakistan, with a new army chief separate from the president and the recent return from exile of the country's two main opposition leaders. That is likely to complicate Bush administration anti-terrorism policy in Pakistan, something officials in Washington were hoping to avoid, and one reason they supported Musharraf for so long.

Senior army commanders grumbled increasingly in recent months that Musharraf was so engrossed in his own political survival that he had become distracted from battling the country's spreading insurgency, Western military officials said.

Though finally stepping down as army chief, he is likely to retain much of his old power as a civilian president, fortified by his emergency decree on Nov. 3, and loyalists he handpicked at the top of the military, according to Pakistani officials and analysts.

But in fairly short order, Musharraf, who plunged the nation into political turmoil with his emergency decree and has been a sometimes frustrating partner in Washington's fight against terrorism, will become a diminished figure, they said, a civilian president in a country where traditionally the power lies with an elected prime minister, or the military chiefs who have overthrown them. Musharraf came to power in such a coup.

Though Kayani is considered loyal to the president, the real levers of power will pass to him, and he is believed to favor removing the army from the center of politics, they said.

"Kayani is loyal to Musharraf, but also to Pakistan," one Western military official said. And as much as Washington has supported Musharraf, having a chief of the army on the job full time is a change likely to be welcomed. Bush administration officials have already praised Kayani as someone they can work with.

Kayani, an infantry commander and a graduate of the Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., has already played a prominent role in cooperating with the United States. He was promoted to full general and made vice chief of army staff in October. He immediately visited units serving on the front lines in Pakistan's tribal areas, and said that sorting out the difficulties plaguing western Pakistan is a priority, a Western military official said.

Even with his new oath of office, Musharraf will confront considerable political challenges. Before giving up his army post, he transferred the power to lift the de facto martial law to the presidency in a decree last week, and so any decision to lift it remains firmly in his hands.

He continues under intense pressure to rescind the decree, which suspended the Constitution and the Supreme Court and has been criticized by opponents and Western diplomats as a blatant move to have his election as president confirmed.

Musharraf is also under pressure to free the senior lawyers and judges who declared his emergency decree illegal and remain under house arrest.

Not least, with parliamentary elections set for Jan. 8, Musharraf also will have to deal with Bhutto and Sharif, the man he overthrew in a coup in 1999.

Both politicians have called for Musharraf's resignation and for changes in the Constitution to curb the president's powers over parliament. As leaders of Pakistan's largest political parties, either could head the next government as prime minister, perpetuating their power struggles with Musharraf as president.

While the military under Kayani is likely to support Musharraf as president, it is unlikely to intervene to save him in further political tests of will, said a former general and political analyst, Talat Masood.

One indication of the mood is a letter that a group of 20 former generals, air marshals and admirals, including Masood, sent this week to Musharraf calling on him to resign as head of state as well as chief of the army.

They called on him to lift the emergency and restore the Constitution, withdraw curbs on the news media and release political prisoners. Imposing the emergency as chief of army staff was bringing the armed forces into disrepute, they said.

One of the hardest things for Musharraf