CNN– The percentage of Americans who blame the Bush administration for the September 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington has risen from almost a third to almost half over the past four years, a CNN poll released Monday found.

Asked whether they blame the Bush administration for the attacks, 45 percent said either a “great deal” or a “moderate amount,” up from 32 percent in a June 2002 CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll.

But the Clinton administration did not get off lightly either. The latest poll, conducted by Opinion Research Corporation for CNN, found that 41 percent of respondents blamed his administration a “great deal” or a “moderate amount” for the attacks. (Read the complete poll results — PDF)

That’s only slightly less than the 45 percent who blamed his administration in a poll carried out less than a week after the attacks.

Still, most Americans appear to be fatalistic, with more than half — 57 percent — saying they think that terrorists will “always find a way to launch attacks no matter what the U.S. government does.”

The poll was carried out August 30 through September 2 by Opinion Research Corp. with 1,004 American adults questioned by telephone. The sampling error for the questions was 3 percentage points.

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