By Wyatt REED and Max BLUMENTHAL
Western officials seized on a dubious death toll of 30,000 protesters to escalate against Iran. The number originates with a single, clearly compromised source. But a zealously pro-war Guardian reporter is doing her best to legitimize it.
The claim of "30,000 killed" during two days of protests and rioting across Iran appears to be based largely on a single anonymous source, who admitted extrapolating that figure by assuming without evidence that "officially registered deaths related to the crackdown likely represent less than 10% of the real number of fatalities."