The ex-president did not contest - as some of his defenders have - that his 2002 remarks sounded like a confession.

"I'd said that we were told we couldn't hold him, implying that we had a chance to get him," he told CNN. "But we didn't. That's not factually accurate," he insisted again.

The speech was recorded by NewsMax.com, as well as the Long Island Association, which hosted the event. The LIA has declined to make its own recording public, though the group has supplied the 9/11 Commission with a videotape.

Just three months ago, when asked about print reports documenting his bin Laden confession, Clinton told the Commission, "That was a misquote." But that was before he learned that his remarks were on tape.

When Amanpour asked him directly about the recording, Clinton said he had "reconstructed all the records, read all the documents" about the Sudanese controversey and had concluded that his earlier recollection was wrong.

"Here's what is factually accurate," he told her. "In 1996 - and before then when we found out about bin Laden - we at first thought he was a financier of terrorism but not a ringleader. ... When he took up residence in Sudan, after having been ejected from Saudi Arabia, it is true that at some point during that period, there was some discussion in the Justice Department casting a doubt on how long we could hold him."

But those discussions were not prompted by Sudan's offer, Clinton said, which he still denies was genuine.

"The idea that the Sudanese offered to hand him over to us is just absurd," he told CNN. "The idea that they told us when he was leaving and he was landing in the Gulf, and we could get him at another airport, is absurd."

While Amanpour interviewed Clinton last week and CNN reported the story on its Web site Friday, the exchange about the Sudanese offer was omitted from the report.

NewsMax.com columnist Steve Malzberg, however, caught CNN's early Sunday morning telecast of the full interview, and broadcast the key audio over his own popular WABC radio show.

Here's a transcript of the full Clinton-Amanpour exchange:

AMANPOUR: Sometime in 1996, or - you spoke to a group of people in Long Island about this whole controversial issue of Sudan.

CLINTON: Actually, it was 2001. [In fact, it was 2002.]

AMANPOUR: OK. Was Sudan asked to extradite him? Did you miss the opportunity to have him extradited?

CLINTON: And I missed - what I said there was wrong. What I said was in error. I went back now and did all this research from my book. And I'd said that we were told we couldn't hold him, implying that we had a chance to get him, but we didn't. That's not factually accurate.

Here's what is factually accurate. In 1996 - and before then when we found out about bin Laden - we at first thought he was a financier of terrorism, but not a ringleader, in the beginning. When he took up residence in Sudan, after having been ejected from Saudi Arabia, it is true that at some point during that period, there was some discussion in the Justice Department casting a doubt on how long we could hold him because, had he committed, did we have evidence that he committed an offense against the United States.

But that was never part of the question about whether could we get him. When he left - the idea that the Sudanese offered to hand him over to us is just absurd. The idea that they told us when he was leaving and he was landing in the Gulf, and we could get him at another airport, is absurd. And the idea, you know, that they tried to give him to us, and could have given him to Afghanistan, is just not true.

I've now gone back and reconstructed all the records, read all the documents, and that's just not true. [END OF TRANSCRIPT]

To hear the confession that Bill Clinton now calls "factually inaccurate," Click Here.

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Editor's note: