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FBI Director Robert Mueller on Wednesday told the federal commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks that his agency is capable of sustaining long-term reform, despite a report from the panel highlighting pervasive problems within the bureau.

The National Commission on Terrorist Attacks is responsible for examining failures that led to the Sept. 11 attacks and making recommendations to prevent future ones. Commissioners have said one option under consideration is the creation of a new intelligence agency that would perform domestic counterterrorism activities now done by the FBI.

"With so little confidence right now in the FBI and the stakes being so large for the security of the country, why should we give the FBI another chance?" asked former Rep. Timothy Roemer, D-Ind.

Commission Chairman Thomas Kean, a former New Jersey governor, asked Mueller if he could fix the bureau's problems. "I came to this job with less knowledge of the intelligence community than anybody else at this table," Kean said. "What I've learned has not reassured me. [It has] frightened me a bit, frankly."

Mueller disputed the notion that the country has lost confidence in the FBI. He said the bureau can and is fixing its problems, and added that institutional reforms aimed at building the bureau's counterterrorism capabilities will be sustained. As part of his testimony, Mueller released a 74-page report that outlines reforms and priorities the bureau has instituted.

Creating a new intelligence service would be "a grave mistake," Mueller said.

He said the bureau is moving to a model where it focuses less on state and local law enforcement in favor of tackling transnational threats, especially by developing a new generation of agents with different skills.

"I believe that since Sept. 11 there has been far better interaction between headquarters and the field in understanding that there has to be a coordination such as we have not seen before, a dissemination of information not only through headquarters, but throughout the intelligence community, and that we have to build up that cadre of individuals," he said.

"We are developing and putting into place a different structure for the FBI that reflects the particular threat today," Mueller added. "My own belief is that as we look to 2010, as we look further in the future ... increasingly the FBI's mission will be to address transnational threats because ... we are the intersection between the threat overseas and state and local law enforcement."

The commission's staff, however, released a report Wednesday critiquing FBI reforms since the attacks. The report cites progress the bureau has made, but notes problems that still remain in the areas of intelligence collection and processing, strategic analysis, knowledge management, and information sharing with other intelligence agencies and state and local law enforcement organizations.

For example, the report found that the bureau has no national strategy for sharing information on counterterrorism matters. According to a recent report by the Justice Department inspector general, a shortage of FBI linguists means thousands of hours of audiotapes and pages of written material are not being reviewed or translated in a timely manner. Despite the recent hire of 653 new linguists, demand exceeds supply, especially in languages such as Arabic, Urdu, Farsi and Pashto.

The FBI also has outdated information systems. For some field offices, basic connectivity to the Internet remains a problem. The report said one of the most common reasons agents gave for failing to share information was the bureau's outdated information technology, and the Automated Case Support system in particular. The system employs 1980s-era technology and cannot be used to store or transmit top secret or sensitive compartmented information. A replacement for the system has been delayed, but Mueller said it should be ready by the end of the year.

Many analysts told the commission they were discouraged by the pace of reform. "Indeed, we heard from many analysts who complain that they are able to do little actual analysis because they continue to be assigned menial tasks, including covering the phones at the reception desk and emptying the office trash bins," the report said.

Mueller said the commission's staff "did a very good job" in the report but it was "a snapshot in time" at six field offices last fall.

He emphasized that the bureau now prioritizes counterterrorism interceptions, and will have linguists review them, if needed, within 24 hours. He added that the bureau has made "substantial progress" on 19 recommendations that were made by the congressional joint inquiry that completed a review of Sept. 11 failures last summer.