Operation Bite?

There have been rumors swirling about for several weeks that the United States would commence an attack on Iran on April 6, under the name "Operation Bite". Most of these rumors seem (or claim) to track back to Russian intelligence.

So are we in for an attack tomorrow? I don't think so. Call me cynical, but "Operation Bite" is not the kind of name this operation would have. It would be called "Operation Saving Democracy" or "Operation Iran Freedom" or "Operation Nuclear Peace". The guys in the Pentagon are better at these things than I; I'm sure their name would be a little snappier. But after "Operation Enduring Freedom" and "Operation Iraqi Freedom", you think they're going back to names like "Bite"? That's so last world war.

I haven't blogged on the whole British hostage situation because I didn't understand any of it. I still don't. I particularly did not understand what the Iranians were doing. I could speculate but what's the point?

I do have one comment about a story going around now about the Iranian nuclear program, the centrifuges in particular, due to reporting by ABC news. The sourcing is highly nebulous--Glenn Greenwald has done some truly dogged work ) trying to get to the bottom of it. armscontrolwonk goes over the centrifuge difficulties in considerable detail. I won't cover that ground.

I will comment about the ABC report, though. It starts like this:

Iran has more than tripled its ability to produce enriched uranium in the last three months, adding some 1,000 centrifuges which are used to separate radioactive particles from the raw material.

And my comment is: nobody who knows what they are talking about would tell you that the purpose of enrichment is to extract the radioactive particles from raw material. The "raw material" that enters into the centrifuge is actually already highly processed--they aren't pouring dirt into these things. But that I'm actually willing to overlook.

But the material (raw or otherwise) that enters a centrifuge is ALL radioactive--though in fact barely so. The purpose of enrichment is to extract the fissionable particles.

You may think why is he being so picky about this? Fissionable, radioactive, whatever. But the word radioactive didn't get there by accident. The reason it bugs me is simple: either whomever told this to the ABC reporter didn't know what they were talking about, or the ABC reporter simply didn't understand it. It's possible that the truth didn't get mangled somewhere along the way, but I sure wouldn't want to bet the world on it.

Update: acw has a pageful of calculations on the Iranian centrifuges.