NEW YORK (Reuters) – The reported use of "Geronimo" as a codeword in the operation that led to Osama bin Laden's killing has angered some native Americans and threatens to become an embarrassment for the Obama administration.

Geronimo was an Apache warrior leader who fought for tribal lands against U.S. and Mexican forces in the 19th century and who, like bin Laden, evaded capture for many years. He was held as a U.S. prisoner of war from the time he was captured in 1886 until his death in 1909.

Bin Laden, the al Qaeda leader who masterminded the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States, was shot in the head by U.S. forces who stormed his compound in Pakistan on Monday after a decade-long manhunt.

It has been widely reported that U.S. forces said "Geronimo EKIA (Enemy Killed in Action)" to confirm bin Laden's death.

The Senate Committee on Indian Affairs will discuss on Thursday concerns raised over "the linking of the name of Geronimo, one of the greatest Native American heroes, with the most hated enemy of the United States," said the committee's chief counsel Loretta Tuell.

While the Geronimo codeword for the bin Laden operation has been widely reported, the Pentagon has not confirmed it. Pentagon officials did not immediately respond to requests for reaction to the objections by Native Americans.

"To equate Geronimo or any other Native American figure with Osama bin Laden, a mass murderer and cowardly terrorist, is painful and offensive to our Tribe and to all native Americans," wrote Jeff Houser, chairman of the Fort Sill Apache Tribe, in a letter to President Barack Obama.

Houser said that while he was certain the naming of the operation was based on "misunderstood and misconceived historical perspectives of Geronimo and his armed struggle," he demanded a formal apology from Obama.

"What this action has done is forever link the name and memory of Geronimo to one of the most despicable enemies this country has ever had," he wrote.

"Unlike the coward Osama bin Laden, Geronimo faced his enemy in numerous battles and engagements," Houser said.

Geronimo is also a motivational catchcry of U.S. Army paratroopers after a member of the first experimental parachute unit yelled "Geronimo" in 1940 as he leaped from a plane, inspired after watching a 1939 movie about the Apache warrior, historians said.

SENATE HEARING ON CONCERNS

Chester Rodriguez, 55, an Apache descendant of Geronimo in Bisbee, Arizona, said it was not right to use Geronimo's name for the bin Laden operation.

"Geronimo wasn't a terrorist, he was a good man, he spoke the truth about the white man and what they did to his people ... He wasn't like that (bin Laden) at all," said Rodriguez, whose Apache name is Eagle Bone.

The Onondaga Nation Council of Chiefs in New York state said that using Geronimo as the code name for the bin Laden mission was "reprehensible."

"To compare him to Osama bin Laden is illogical and insulting," the Council of Chiefs said in a statement.

"The name Geronimo is arguably the most recognized Native American name in the world, and this comparison only serves to perpetuate negative stereotypes about our peoples. The U.S. military leadership should have known better," they said.

The U.S. Senate committee needs to look at the prevalence in American society of "these inappropriate uses of Native American icons and cultures," said Tuell.

"The impacts to Native and non-Native children are devastating," she said.

The U.S. government recognizes 565 Native American tribes whose members lived on the land for centuries before the United States, Canada and Mexico existed, speaking their own languages and following beliefs centered on the natural world.

But there has long been problems with the use of American Indian symbols, particularly by sports teams. In 2009 the Supreme Court rejected an appeal by six American Indians in their long-running legal challenge of the Washington Redskins' football team name, which they find racially offensive.

(Additional reporting by David Alexander in Washington and Tim Gaynor in Phoenix, editing by Martin Howell)

CHICAGO (Reuters) – Government engineers will blow up a third section of a Mississippi River levee on Thursday to manage flooding, as a wall of water roared down the nation's largest river system, threatening towns and cities all the way to the Gulf of Mexico.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers blew up a two-mile section of the Birds Point levee Monday night, inundating about 130,000 acres of Missouri farmland in a desperate attempt to ease flooding in towns in Illinois and Kentucky.

Water levels did recede but a second, smaller section was detonated Tuesday afternoon to allow water back into the river. A third and last blast was scheduled for Wednesday but was delayed until 1 p.m. on Thursday by "logistical difficulties," the Corps said in a statement on Wednesday night.

The Corps, which is responsible for the system of locks and dams along the Mississippi River, would then turn its attention to the growing threat further south.

"The entire system is experiencing flooding and we will continue our fight downstream," said Major Gen. Michael J. Walsh, president of the Mississippi River Commission, in a statement.

President Barack Obama on Wednesday declared parts of Kentucky, Mississippi and Tennessee as disaster areas due to flooding, freeing up federal aid to help those affected.

Arkansas closed a 15-mile stretch of westbound lanes of one of the busiest road arteries in the nation, Interstate 40, for the time ever due to flooding, according to the state's transportation department. More than 31,000 vehicles travel daily through the section of road closed, and 65 to 70 percent of those are trucks, said Glenn Bolick, Arkansas Transportation

Department spokesman.

Highway officials were diverting traffic onto rural roads but even some of these were flooded, they said.

Further downstream in Mississippi, some residents of the historic Civil War town of Vicksburg were moving to higher ground on Wednesday to avoid the rising flood waters.

"We are not going to stay here," said Vicksburg resident Harold Manner. "The families all around us are taking what they can and moving out of here, at least for now."

The levee system in Mississippi is holding for now but it has never been tested like this before, officials said.

"Compared to the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 this flood is going to be a lot nastier," said Marty Pope, senior hydrologist for the National Weather Service in Jackson.

Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour has had sandbags delivered to his Yazoo City home to prevent it from flooding.

Large amounts of rain and melt from the winter snow has caused a chain reaction of flooding from Canada and the Dakotas through Illinois, Indiana, Missouri, Kentucky, Arkansas and Tennessee. It is expected to soon hit Mississippi and Louisiana at the mouth of the Mississippi River.

(Additional reporting by Tim Ghianni in Nashville, Miriam Moynihan in St. Louis; Leigh Coleman in Biloxi, Mississippi and Suzi Parker in Little Rock; Writing by Mary Wisniewski; Editing by Greg McCune and Peter Bohan)

PORTLAND, Ore (Reuters) – A train derailed and smashed into a parked train carrying ethanol outside Portland, Oregon on Wednesday, sparking an intense fire that forced homes and businesses to evacuate.

The flames were so fierce that firefighters were withdrawn from the immediate area and attacked it from turrets from across a highway, Portland Fire and Rescue Bureau spokeswoman Alisa Cour told Reuters.

Crews dumped water on the blaze for about three hours before putting it out about 4 p.m. local time, Cour said.

Homes and businesses were evacuated for a one-half mile radius but no injuries were reported.

Firefighters were still spraying water after the fire was out "to make sure there are no residual flames," Cour said.

Several agencies are on the scene evaluating the area around the accident for possible environmental issues.

Cour estimated that between 30-40 trucks from Portland, Scappoose Fire Department and Tualatin Valley Fire and Rescue were at the scene.

Three of the 13 tanker cars carrying ethanol were burning, said Michael Williams, director of corporate communications for Genesee & Wyoming Inc., which owns the railroad.

Highway 30, which runs parallel to the train tracks, was closed.

The cause of the derailment is not yet known, Williams said.

Cour had no estimate of how long it would take to douse the fire.

(Reporting by Teresa Carson; Editing by Dan Whitcomb and Greg McCune)