On the 10th anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, we look at how U.S. military veterans and Iraqi civilians have come together to launch the "Right to Heal" campaign for those who continue to struggle with the war’s aftermath. We’re joined by U.S. Army Sergeant Maggie Martin, who was part of the invading force in March 2003 and is now director of organizing for Iraq Veterans Against the War. We are also joined by Yanar Mohammed, president of the Organization of Women’s Freedom in Iraq, who describes how the condition of women has deteriorated in Iraq, with many young women and orphans pushed into sex trafficking. Mohammed’s organization has also documented the toxic legacy of the U.S. military’s munitions in Iraq by interviewing Iraqi mothers who face an epidemic of birth defects. [includes rush transcript]

See our new interactive timeline where you can watch video highlights from a decade of Democracy Now! coverage of the Iraq War and the peace movement. It was 10 years ago, on March 19, 2003, that the United States invaded Iraq on the false pretext that Saddam Hussein was hiding weapons of mass destruction. Six weeks later, President George W. Bush stood under a banner reading "Mission Accomplished" and declared an end to major military combat operations. But Operation Iraqi Freedom would lead to an almost nine-year U.S. military occupation. Democracy Now! producer Renée Feltz explains how the timeline works and highlights some of the featured videos. [includes rush transcript]

In part two of our interview, Al Jazeera reporter Dahr Jamail discusses how the U.S. invasion of Iraq has left behind a legacy of cancer and birth defects suspected of being caused by the U.S. military’s extensive use of depleted uranium and white phosphorus. Noting the birth defects in the Iraqi city of Fallujah, Jamail says: "They’re extremely hard to bear witness to. But it’s something that we all need to pay attention to ... What this has generated is, from 2004 up to this day, we are seeing a rate of congenital malformations in the city of Fallujah that has surpassed even that in the wake of the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki that nuclear bombs were dropped on at the end of World War II." Jamail has also reported on the refugee crisis of more than one million displaced Iraqis still inside the country, who are struggling to survive without government aid, a majority of them living in Baghdad. Click here to watch part 1 of the interview. [includes rush transcript]

Investigative journalist Dahr Jamail reported for Democracy Now! throughout the early stages of the U.S. invasion of Iraq 10 years ago. Now with Al Jazeera, Jamail has just returned from Iraq once again, finding what he calls a "failed state" living in "utter devastation." In part one of our interview, Jamail discusses the harrowing security situation for Iraqis living in fear of bombings, executions and kidnappings, the widespread torture in Iraq’s prisons, and the breakdown of security in what he calls a "lawless state." Jamail is the author of "Beyond the Green Zone: Dispatches from an Unembedded Journalist in Occupied Iraq" and "The Will to Resist: Soldiers Who Refuse to Fight in Iraq and Afghanistan." [includes rush transcript]

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As the 10th anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq is marked around the world today, President Obama is heading to Israel for the first trip there of his presidency. Obama’s three-day tour also includes stops in the occupied West Bank on Thursday and in Jordan on Friday. The White House has taken pains to play down expectations of Obama’s visit, billing it a "listening tour." Obama’s supporters say that mission reflects the reality of the Middle East conflict, with the United States unable to forcefully change an intractable dispute. But in his new book, the Palestinian-American scholar Rashid Khalidi argues that the United States could in fact play a decisive role in achieving Middle East peace if it simply reversed decades of policy backing the Israeli occupation. In "Brokers of Deceit: How the U.S. Has Undermined Peace in the Middle East," Khalidi draws on his research as a historian, and on his own experience as an adviser to Palestinian negotiators, to argue that far from being an impartial broker, the United States has effectively acted as Israel’s lawyer. [includes rush transcript]

We continue our look at the Iraq War’s 10th anniversary with Raed Jarrar, an Iraqi-American blogger and political analyst. Jarrar led the first civilian casualty survey in Iraq as the country director of Civic Worldwide and has closely monitored the issue of civilian casualties as well as the larger fallout from the U.S. invasion for the last 10 years. He’s currently the communications director at the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee. Discussing Iraq’s current Shiite-Sunni divide, Jarrar says the U.S. invasion has brought "the complete destruction of the Iraqi national identity. There is no civic identity in Iraq anymore. So people ... regressed. They went to the other level that they can identify with, and that, unfortunately, was the sectarian affiliation." [includes rush transcript]

On the 10th anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, we look at a massive new report by a team of 30 economists, anthropologists, political scientists, legal experts and physicians about the Iraq War’s impact. "The Costs of War" report found the total number of people who have died from the Iraq War, including soldiers, militants, police, contractors, journalists, humanitarian workers and Iraqi civilians, has reached at least 189,000 people, including at least 123,000 civilians. Financially, the report estimates a cost to U.S. taxpayers of $2.2 trillion, a figure that could one day approach $4 trillion with the interest accrued on the borrowed money used to fund the war. We’re joined by the report’s co-author, Neta Crawford, professor of political science at Boston University. [includes rush transcript]

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• Steubenville: 2 Teenage Girls Arrested for Threatening Rape Victim Online

We continue our conversation with acclaimed author Arundhati Roy by discussing the overlooked conflict in Kashmir, the center of a decades-long dispute between India and Pakistan. Roy joins us along with Sanjay Kak, a New Delhi-based documentary filmmaker whose most recent film is "Jashn-e-Azadi," or "How We Celebrate Freedom," and who is the author of the book, "Until My Freedom Has Come: The New Intifada in Kashmir." Discussing India’s military involvement in Kashmir, Roy says: "It’s such a morally reprehensible thing to be living in a country that is doing this to a people and everyone is keeping quiet about it. ... What they are doing to people is terrible." [includes rush transcript]

On the eve of the 10th anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, the global justice activist and author Arundhati Roy joins us to discuss the war’s legacy. Roy is the author of many books, including "The God of Small Things," "Walking with the Comrades," and "Field Notes on Democracy: Listening to Grasshoppers." Roy argues the imperial mentality that enabled the United States to invade Iraq continues today unabated across the world. "We are being given lessons in morality [by world leaders] while tens of thousands are being killed, while whole countries are shattered, while whole civilizations are driven back decades, if not centuries," Roy says. "And everything continues as normal." [includes rush transcript]

Two high school football players in Steubenville, Ohio, have been found guilty of raping a 16-year-old girl at a party last August. On Sunday, the teenagers, Trent Mays and Ma’lik Richmond, were found delinquent in the sexual assault of the girl who witnesses testified was too drunk to move or speak. The case sparked a national controversy following the emergence of images and social media postings from the night of the assault. We’re joined by Alexandria Goddard, a crime blogger who first exposed crucial evidence in the case by taking screen shots of incriminating social media posts, photographs and videos, before they could be deleted. The hacker group Anonymous picked up on Goddard’s posts and released shocking video from the night of the assault. We also speak to Marc Randazza, a First Amendment lawyer who represented Goddard when she was unsuccessfully sued for defamation. "I’m convinced that if Ms. Goddard hadn’t started blogging about this and Anonymous hadn’t taken up the standard, that this case would have been swept under the rug," Randazza says. [includes rush transcript]

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While the world focused on the conclave selecting Argentine Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio to become pope, a protest took place outside that received far less attention. Protesters demanding a greater role for women in the Catholic Church released pink smoke into the air over the Vatican. Their actions came as many were waiting for white smoke, the signal a new pope had been chosen. We speak with Erin Saiz Hanna, executive director of the Women’s Ordination Conference, and Janice Sevre-Duszynska, an excommunicated female priest. [includes rush transcript]

Over the past week, political analyst Zerlina Maxwell has received racially fueled death threats for speaking out against rape. Maxwell, who is a rape survivor, appeared on a Fox News segment with Sean Hannity last week about the possibility of arming women to prevent rape. She said the responsibility should lie instead with men. In response to her remarks, Maxwell received a torrent of abuse on social media with commenters saying she deserved to be gang-raped and killed. Zerlina Maxwell joins us to discuss her ordeal and her refusal to be silent in the face of the threats against her. [includes rush transcript]

As we continue our coverage of the second anniversary of the Syrian uprising, freelance foreign correspondent Reese Erlich joins us to discuss Saudi Arabia’s involvement in the Syrian conflict. Two years after leading a Gulf intervention force to crush the protests in Bahrain, Saudi Arabia is playing an increasing role in Syria, allowing the supply of arms and even the infiltration of militants to help the rebels’ fight. Erlich, who has just returned after 10 days in Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, says the Saudi monarchy is involved in arming "the most ultraconservative, ultrareligious" Syrian rebel groups in the hopes that a pro-Saudi government will emerge. [includes rush transcript]

Today marks the second anniversary of the uprising against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, a conflict that has killed more than 70,000 people and created at least one million refugees. We’re joined by Rim Turkmani, an astrophysicist and member of the Syrian Civil Democratic Alliance who’s in New York meeting with Security Council members discussing possible political solutions to the situation in Syria. Turkmani warns that Syrian voices for nonviolence are being ignored as foreign actors on both sides fuel an armed conflict. "There’s systematic efforts to marginalize people like us inside Syria and focus only on the armed rebels. And they are the ones now who are stealing all the headlines," Turkmani says. "Why? Because, yes, there are certain actors, regional and international, who see this as proxy wars, and it’s an opportunity to fight their international opponents. It’s a struggle over Syria, over power, and the Syrians are falling victims to that." [includes rush transcript]

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• Undercover Probe Leads to Tighter Checks at NY Gun Shows
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During the military dictatorship in Argentina, the new pope openly criticized liberation theology’s combination of religious teachings and calls for social justice. His social conservative streak continued when he was elevated to cardinal in Argentina. In 2010, he called the Argentine government’s legalization of gay marriage "an attempt to destroy God’s plan" and opposed adoption by gay couples. We discuss Pope Francis’ social conservatism with Ernesto Semán, a historian at New York University and former reporter for two Argentine newspapers, and with Argentine journalist Horacio Verbitsky. [includes rush transcript]

While praised for his work with the poor, Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio — now Pope Francis — has long been dogged by accusations of his role during Argentina’s military dictatorship. We speak to Horacio Verbitsky, a leading Argentine journalist who exposed Francis’ connection to the abduction of two Jesuit priests. Verbitsky is an investigative journalist for the newspaper Página/12, or Page/12, and head of the Center for Legal and Social Studies, an Argentine human rights organization. [includes rush transcript]