[There was a video here]

On a tape recorded September 10, 2001, Bill Clinton can be heard saying he once had the opportunity to kill Osama bin Laden, but didn't, because it would have meant killing 300 civilians as well.

The recording, made with Clinton's consent, surfaced this week when former Australian Liberal Party head Michael Kroger provided it to Australian TV network Sky News, Reuters reports. Clinton was speaking at an event in Melbourne at the time.

Clinton's full statement regarding bin Laden:

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. I nearly got him, and I could have gotten—I could have killed him, but I would have had 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.

As Reuters notes, Clinton made similar statements before and after 9/11, but the timing of this particular speech is eerie. The 9/11 Commission Report details the December 1998 incident to which Clinton was apparently referring: