During a discussion on CNN's Larry King Live of President Bush's September 13 address to the nation about Iraq, host Larry King -- in a special edition specifically focused on reaction to the address -- failed to challenge former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani's (R) assertion that “our goal is in Iraq is no different now than it was at the very beginning. The goal of the mission in Iraq is to provide safety and security so we can have an ally in Iraq against the Islamic terrorists. And that was the mission that most of the Democrats agreed to in 2003. They've kind of changed their minds about that.” In fact, the Bush administration has frequently changed its “goal of the mission in Iraq,” which at various times it has articulated as disarming Iraq of weapons of mass destruction, building democracy, and providing stability and security in the Middle East.

In response to King's question whether there was "[a]nything you disagreed with tonight" in Bush's address, Giuliani noted that, “I thought the president was correct to follow General Petraeus' recommendation.” Giuliani went on to assert:

GIULIANI: It seems to me that our goal is in Iraq is no different now than it was at the very beginning. The goal of the mission in Iraq is to provide safety and security so we can have an ally in Iraq against the Islamic terrorists. And that was the mission that most of the Democrats agreed to in 2003. They've kind of changed their minds about that. I think the language I quoted actually came from [Sen.] Hillary Rodham Clinton [D-NY] that the goal, the mission in Iraq is the safety and security in Iraq. And of course, the end purpose of that is so we can have an ally against Islamic terrorism.

In fact, in justifying the need to invade Iraq in 2003, Bush and members of his administration emphasized Saddam Hussein's purported possession of weapons of mass destruction, not “provid[ing] safety and security” in Iraq, as Media Matters for America documented. Indeed, in his January 28, 2003, State of the Union address, Bush famously declared: “The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.” Further, in a March 17, 2003, address, Bush stated:

For more than a decade, the United States and other nations have pursued patient and honorable efforts to disarm the Iraqi regime without war. That regime pledged to reveal and destroy all its weapons of mass destruction as a condition for ending the Persian Gulf War in 1991.

Since then, the world has engaged in 12 years of diplomacy. We have passed more than a dozen resolutions in the United Nations Security Council. We have sent hundreds of weapons inspectors to oversee the disarmament of Iraq. Our good faith has not been returned.

The Iraqi regime has used diplomacy as a ploy to gain time and advantage. It has uniformly defied Security Council resolutions demanding full disarmament. Over the years, U.N. weapon inspectors have been threatened by Iraqi officials, electronically bugged, and systematically deceived. Peaceful efforts to disarm the Iraqi regime have failed again and again -- because we are not dealing with peaceful men.

Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised. This regime has already used weapons of mass destruction against Iraq's neighbors and against Iraq's people.

Bush further asserted -- in a March 19, 2003, speech -- that, “Our nation enters this conflict reluctantly -- yet, our purpose is sure. The people of the United States and our friends and allies will not live at the mercy of an outlaw regime that threatens the peace with weapons of mass murder. We will meet that threat now, with our Army, Air Force, Navy, Coast Guard and Marines, so that we do not have to meet it later with armies of fire fighters and police and doctors on the streets of our cities.”

Bush shifted rationales for the war after the Iraq Survey Group's final report, commonly known as the Duelfer report, did not find any weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. An October 9, 2004, article in The Washington Post reported that “the argument that the United States faced a moment of maximum peril in early 2003 from Iraq has been greatly weakened by the release last week of the comprehensive report of chief U.S. weapons inspector Charles A. Duelfer.” The Post further noted that, “In the wake of the report, President Bush has reframed the way he characterizes his rationale for the launching the war.” Indeed, in a November 4, 2003, speech Bush asserted that, “our mission all along” had been “to develop the conditions such that a free Iraq will emerge, run by the Iraqi citizens.”

And in his speech announcing the escalation of combat forces in January, Bush asserted: “Victory will not look like the ones our fathers and grandfathers achieved. There will be no surrender ceremony on the deck of a battleship. But victory in Iraq will bring something new in the Arab world -- a functioning democracy that polices its territory, upholds the rule of law, respects fundamental human liberties, and answers to its people. A democratic Iraq will not be perfect. But it will be a country that fights terrorists instead of harboring them -- and it will help bring a future of peace and security for our children and our grandchildren.”

From the September 13 edition of CNN's Larry King Live:

KING: We are now joined in Atlanta by Rudy Giuliani, the former mayor of New York who has, in the main, supported this president and his Iraq policy. Anything you disagreed with tonight?

GIULIANI: I thought the president was correct to follow General Petraeus' recommendation. We sent the general there. We sent him there to perform a mission, to have this surge work. It appears from all of the neutral observers that it's worked better than anybody anticipated, not that it's perfect. There are a lot of things that still have to be done.

But we had people go there who were former critics of the war, even some Democrats, who looked at it and said, “it's remarkable the amount of success that General Petraeus and the troops have had.”

It seems to me that our goal is in Iraq is no different now than it was at the very beginning. The goal of the mission in Iraq is to provide safety and security so we can have an ally in Iraq against the Islamic terrorists. And that was the mission that most of the Democrats agreed to in 2003. They've kind of changed their minds about that. I think the language I quoted actually came from Hillary Rodham Clinton that the goal, the mission in Iraq is the safety and security in Iraq. And of course, the end purpose of that is so we can have an ally against Islamic terrorism. If we can be successful in that, I don't see the idea of running out and withdrawing and retreating.

KING: Define success. When you say safety and the like, that is subjective, right? We might say we'll never be successful. It will take 100 years until you're totally successful. How define it?

GIULIANI: That's what they used to say about -- Larry, that's what they used to say about crime in New York, right? We'd never be able to reduce it. How do you define safety and security? How you define it is, a society in which people can send their children to school, a society in which people can go to work. A society in which the blessings of democracy and liberty mean something. When people are living in fear, democracy is just a theory. So what we have to do here is to provide enough safety and security so that the Iraqis can work out a stable government for themselves.

You know the most hopeful signs there? The local governments that are developing. Governments develop, actually -- democracies develop from the bottom up, not from the top down. And General Petraeus, I thought, had a really brilliant insight with regard to that. And this is not easy, but it's really important. Think of the consequences of what the Democrats want to do, retreating and running away in Iraq. It will bring us back to that same position of weakness we had in the 1990s.

And if you understand Islamic terrorism and you really pay attention to it, they take advantage of weakness more than they do with strength. So we're much better off in being on offense against them, being strong. We've got General Petraeus there. It seems to me despite the attacks that some of these Democrats have made on his integrity, this is a man of honesty and integrity. He's doing a good job. Let's give him a chance to succeed.

KING: When someone says to you, Mayor, the goal may be wonderful and it's great to hear, why is it worth close to 4,000 lives?