- Joined
- Sep 15, 2011
- Messages
- 4,661
- Reaction score
- 3,252
- Location
- The New New Frontier
- Gender
- Male
- Political Leaning
- Progressive
The day before the terror attacks on September 11, 2001, former President Bill Clinton told a group of businessmen in Australia that he "could have killed" the man behind those attacks, Osama bin Laden, in 1998, but he decided against launching a strike out of concern for civilian casualties.
It's a startling and tragic bit of irony that remained hidden until Wednesday, when Michael Kroger, the former head of the Liberal Party in Australia, released the audio during an interview on Sky News. Mr. Clinton knew he was being recorded, but the audio was never released because Kroger said he'd forgotten about it until last week.
Clinton was speaking to Kroger and about 30 other businessmen in Melbourne for a paid gig on September 10, 2001, when he was asked about international terrorism.
Key snippet:
"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," said Clinton, who'd departed the White House earlier that year. "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."
Read the full story HERE.