Mr Clinton also accused the Bush administration of doing far less to stop the al-Qaeda leader before the September 11 attacks.
Fox News journalist Chris Wallace asked Mr Clinton during the interview whether he felt he had "done enough to put (Osama) bin Laden out of business" during his presidency.
Mr Clinton replied "No because I didn't get him, but at least I tried".
The former Democratic president defended the steps he took after al-Qaeda's attack on the USS Cole in 2000 and lashed out at his “right-wing” opponents.
"At least I tried, that is the difference from me and some, including all the right-wingers who are attacking me now," Mr Clinton said.
"They ridicule me for trying, they had eight months to try, they did not try. I tried, so I tried and failed," he said.
Mr Clinton was referring to the eight months after President George W Bush succeeded him in 2001 before the September 11 attacks occurred.
"I authorised the CIA to get groups together to try to kill him," Mr Clinton said.
Invasion plans ready
During the interview Mr Clinton also said he had drawn up plans to go into Afghanistan to overthrow the Taliban and launch an attack against bin Laden after the attack on the Cole in the Yemeni port of Aden.
"Now if you want to criticise me for one thing, you can criticise me for this: after the Cole, I had battle plans drawn to go into Afghanistan, overthrow the Taliban and launch a full-scale attack search for bin Laden. But we needed basing rights in Uzbekistan - which we got after 9/11," Mr Clinton said.
The former president complained at the time the CIA and FBI refused to certify bin Laden was responsible for the USS Cole attack.
"While I was there, they refused to certify. So that meant I would have had to send a few hundred special forces in helicopters, refuel at night," he said.
Earlier this month, Mr Clinton dismissed as "indisputably wrong" a US television show that suggested he was too distracted by the Monica Lewinsky scandal to confront the Islamic militant threat that culminated in the September 11 attacks.