Military operations led by the United States have also brought forth ecological disasters to other nations such as huge rise in birth defects, says a report on the U.S. human rights record released on Sunday.

An article posted on the website of the Independent cited a study that reported a "staggering rise" in birth defects among Iraqi children conceived in the aftermath of the war, the report says.

The study linked a huge rise that Iraq had recorded since the war in birth defects with military actions in which American forces used metal contaminant-releasing white phosphorus shells, says the report, titled "the Human Rights Record of the United States in 2012," which was released by China's State Council Information Office.

The study found that in the Iraqi city of Fallujah, which saw two of the heaviest battles during the Iraq war, more than half of all babies surveyed were born with a birth defect between 2007 and 2010.

Before the war, the figure was more like one in 10. More than 45 percent of all pregnancies surveyed ended in miscarriage in the two years after 2004, up from the previous 10 percent, according to figures of the study cited by the report.

The report also quotes Steve Kretzmann, director of Oil Change International, as saying that the Iraq war was responsible for at least 141 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (MMTCO2e) from March 2003 through December 2007. "The war emits more than 60 percent of all countries," Kretzmann said. Endi

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