While speaking to an audience in Melbourne, Australia, on Sept. 10, 2001, former President Bill Clinton allegedly said that he passed up an opportunity to kill terrorist and 9/11 mastermind Osama bin Laden while in office.

“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,” Mr. Clinton told members of the audience, Sky News Australia reported Wednesday. Audio of the conference was played on Australia’s Paul Murray Show.

“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,” Mr. Clinton added.

The day after Mr. Clinton’s comments is the day of the Sept. 11 terror attacks, the most deadly terror attacks to ever occur on American soil, which resulted in the deaths of nearly 3,000 people, The Associated Press.

The audio, never released publicly until Wednesday, was originally recorded with the former president’s permission, the New York Daily News reported Thursday.

“What’s very definite is that I’m pretty sure that [Mr. Clinton] dropped that part of the anecdotes and the after dinner speaking circuit in the past couple of years,” the Australian host said at the end of the segment.

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