Bill Clinton Day Before 9/11: I Could Have Killed Bin Laden But 'I Didn't Do It'

Former President Bill Clinton admitted to passing on an opportunity to kill Osama bin Laden in a speech he made just hours before two planes struck and brought down the Twin Towers on Sept. 11, 2001.

In a newly released recording taken on Sept. 10, Clinton reportedly tells a group of Australian businessmen about the time he had the chance to take out bin Laden but decided not to.

"I'm just saying, you know, if I were Osama bin Laden- he's a very smart guy, I've spent a lot of time thinking about him- and I nearly got him once," Clinton said on the recording obtained by Sky News Australia and published Wednesday.

"I nearly got him. And I could have killed him, but I would have to destroy a little town called Kandahar in Afghanistan and kill 300 innocent women and children, and then I would have been no better than him.

"And so I didn't do it," Clinton said at the speech in Melbourne, Australia.

Clinton, whose term as president had just ended, gave permission for the speech to be recorded, according to the New York Daily News. The recording remained hidden to the public until a man who attended the speech gave it to Sky News Australia.

Request for comment from Clinton was not immediately answered, the Daily News reported.

In the past, the Clinton administration had been suspected of passing up opportunities to arrest or kill bin Laden. According to the 9/11 Commission Report, there was information suggesting the administration had the chance to extradite bin Laden to the U.S. on terrorism charges but turned it down, Fox News reported.

The report also found that in 1999 the Clinton administration chose not to attack bin Laden after the CIA traced him to a hunting camp in Afghanistan. The administration did not want to harm United Arab Emirate officials that were at the camp on a trip, Fox News reported.