National security investigations would continue and agents working to combat terrorism wouldn't be furloughed, he said.

However, FBI investigations, such as combating child pornography and white-collar crime, on the criminal side could be hindered. The FBI's ability to train new agents would also be affected, Mueller told a U.S. Senate subcommittee considering the bureau's 2012 budget request.

Under the current stop-gap measures Congress has used to delay a shutdown, the FBI is the only intelligence-gathering agency that hasn't been fully funded, Mueller said.

Even under the purposed budget for 2011, Mueller said the bureau would be facing a deficit of $200 million. For Fiscal Year 2012, the bureau is requesting $8.1 billion in funding.

Mueller testified in front of the subcommittee for the final time. He is nearing the end of a 10-year term limit placed on the office by Congress in 1968. Mueller is the second longest serving director of the FBI -- behind J. Edgar Hoover -- and the first to serve the full 10 years since the limits were put in place.

The decade under Mueller's leadership may have been one of the biggest times of change for the FBI, which saw its role expanded from fighting criminals to also fighting terrorists.

One week after Mueller assumed command of the FBI in 2001, terrorists flew planes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

As Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., put it, the United States needed a new group with the resources and training to keep citizens safe.

"We chose not a new agency, not a new bureaucracy but we turned to one of the most trusted agencies in the United States government," she said.

That landed the responsibility squarely in Mueller's lap.

"The FBI faces now unprecedented and increasingly complex challenges," Mueller said. "The demands on the FBI have never been greater."

Before Sept.11, Mueller estimated there were 10,000 FBI agents on the streets, with 30 percent engaged in national security issues and the rest focused on criminal activity.

Since then, Mueller said, he has gained 4,000 more agents and the FBI's focus is a 50-50 split between terrorism and other criminal activity like mortgage fraud.

But the transition wasn't without cost. Immediately after the Sept.11 attacks, the FBI shifted 2,000 agents to new roles in counter-terrorism, with 1,500 of those agents coming from drug enforcement programs. Mueller said narcotics investigations have yet to recover from the loss of manpower.

"We have not had anywhere near the footprint we had in addressing narcotics cases since 9/11," he said.

Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, expressed concern that budget cuts would leave the FBI unable to combat drug violence, which she described as a "war" right on the U.S. border.

"This war is going to affect our country and it is as important as any war we're going to fight anywhere," Hutchison said.

After the hearing, which was open to the public, the subcommittee had a closed-door session. Mikulski said the subcommittee would discuss cyber- and border-security. More than 60 percent of the FBI's budget falls under classified information.

Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, praised Mueller's service.

"That continuation of leadership," she said, "has been extremely important as the FBI has gone through a fundamental transition in its mission."

Before becoming director of the FBI, Mueller was U.S. attorney in San Francisco. He served in Vietnam where he was awarded the Purple Heart and several other honors.

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