An audio tape of Bill Clinton recorded a day before the 9/11 attack suggests that the former president "could have killed" Osama Bin Laden.

The audio tape which was released on Wednesday was a recording of a speaking engagement that the former president had in Melbourne, Australia, with a group of businessmen.

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In the tape, Clinton could be heard saying that he had a chance to kill Bin Laden in Afghanistan but he chose not to because hundreds of civilians would have been killed.

"And I'm just saying, you know, if I were Osama bin Laden -he's a very smart guy. I spent a lot of time thinking about him. And I nearly got him once," Clinton allegedly said, according to the audio tape.

 "I nearly got him. And I could have killed him but I would have had to destroy a little town called Kandahar in Afghanistan and killed 300 innocent women and children and then I would have been no better than him. And so I didn't," the former president said.

Less than 24 hours after Clinton made the statement, the former Al Qaeda founder ordered a terrorist attack on the United States and the first hijacked plane hit the World Trade Center taking the lives of more than 3,000 people.

Michael Kroger, the former head of the Liberal Party in Australia, was the one who made the recording with Clinton's knowledge.

In a statement given by Kroger to Australia Sky News on Wednesday, Kroger said it was only recently that he remembered he had the tape in his possession.

 During Clinton's administration in 1998, a commission report on the Sept. 11 incident stated that the administration was considering launching a missile attack on Kandahar, where Bin Laden was reportedly hiding.

However, when it was discovered that there is a possibility of hundreds of innocent lives that could be endangered, the attack was put on hold.

Osama Bin Laden was eventually killed on May 2011 following a SEAL raid in Pakistan.

Tagsosama bin laden, 9/11, Bill Clinton