WASHINGTON - With stark warnings about terrorist assaults to come, lawmakers on Wednesday pressed the White House and Congress to reform the nation's intelligence agencies and improve preparation or risk a repeat of the Sept. 11 attacks.

The two intelligence committees finished a 10-month investigation into the terrorist attacks by issuing 19 recommendations, including the creation of a Cabinet-level director to oversee the vast, decentralized network of 13 intelligence agencies.

"It's almost a certainty that in the coming months, Americans will face another attempted terrorist assault that could quite possibly be of the same scale as that of Sept. 11," said Sen. Bob Graham, the Florida Democrat who chairs the Senate committee.

"It's our belief that if these recommendations are fully and expeditiously implemented, our government's ability to detect, deter and disrupt the next assault will be significantly improved," he added.

The White House said it was studying the recommendations but in the past the administration has opposed such an intelligence shakeup.

As expected, the two committees also criticized the FBI for its "repeated shortcomings within its current responsibility for domestic intelligence" and called for a prompt study of whether a new agency, possibly within the Department of Homeland Security, should monitor suspected terrorists in the United States.

Graham and the two House Intelligence leaders - Rep. Porter Goss, a R-Fla., and Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. - said Congress and the public need to debate how far domestic spying will go to thwart terrorist threats. The 37 members of the two committees could reach no consensus on that issue.

Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., and the ranking member of the Senate committee, criticized the FBI's current work in tracking terrorist suspects on U.S. soil and pursuing their financial support to its sources. He said the committees' findings should have been more critical of top leaders.

"The bureau is fundamentally incapable, in its present form, of providing Americans with the security they require against foreign terrorist threats," said Shelby in his own 75-page review of the Sept. 11 investigation.

In response, the FBI released a statement citing its improvements: "After Sept. 11, we redefined the primary mission to prevent future terrorist acts on the American people and immediately began to build the new FBI to meet this extraordinary challenge."

Shelby also broke with other committee leaders by "naming names" of officials he said should be held accountable because "they failed in significant ways to ensure this country was as prepared as it could have been."

Shelby singled out CIA Director George Tenet, whom he wants to resign; Tenet's predecessor, John Deutch; former FBI Director Louis Freeh, and National Security Agency directors Michael Hayden and Kenneth Minnihan. He did not mention FBI Director Robert Mueller, who began his job the week before Sept. 11.

The committees decided they "didn't have enough information to name individuals," Graham said. The report chides intelligence agencies for "the absence of any substantial efforts to impose accountability."

The committees urged the inspectors general of each agency, who are independent, to discipline employees who failed to do their job, and reward those who took risks.

One leader of the Sept. 11 families said she was disappointed that the recommendations did not hold anyone accountable.

"When my husband was alive, if he didn't do his job well, he could be fired," said Kristen Breitweiser. Her husband Ronald, a money manager, was killed in the World Trade Center.

"There were real failures here. If we don't hold people in the government accountable, there's no impetus to force them to clean up their act and pay attention," she said.

Breitweiser and other relatives of Sept. 11 victims plan to meet in New York on Thursday with Henry Kissinger, who will head an independent commission that's about to launch a broader investigation of the terrorist attacks.

Democratic leaders Tuesday named former Rep. Lee Hamilton as co-chairman of the commission to replace George Mitchell, who said he could not serve because of business commitments.

White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said President Bush stands by Tenet, and added that the administration had just begun to study the recommendations.

Under the current system, Tenet has nominal authority over the intelligence community, but in fact, the Pentagon controls about 80 percent of the intelligence budget.

Shelby said the intelligence director should be "a CEO" over the CIA, National Security Agency and other agencies, with budgetary control and the ability to shift resources quickly to meet various threats.

The Sept. 11 investigation found a series of specific lapses and lack of communication in the CIA and FBI, and a failure to pull together clues and signals "that could have enhanced chances of uncovering and preventing" the Sept. 11 attacks.

Graham said a Cabinet-level official was needed to make sure that did not happen again, but acknowledged that proposal has been made many times in past reports - and went nowhere.

"Why is there a better chance now? Fundamentally, because 3,025 people were killed as a result of gaps in our intelligence," he said.

Graham also said "there are many more findings to be disclosed" about Sept. 11, possibly involving a foreign government's role, and complained that "we currently have 13 requests to the FBI alone for additional information which have not been honored."

Those revelations may involve two Saudis who lived in San Diego before they became hijackers and apparently received funds from two men who were helped by the Saudi royal family. The landlord of the two future hijackers was a Muslim man who had worked as an FBI informant, Newsweek has reported.

"Some of the hijackers were not as isolated during their time in the United States as has been previously suggested," said the investigative staff in a summary of findings released Tuesday.

Shelby complained that investigators have not been aggressive enough in following the "money trail," even if it leads to Saudi Arabia.

"I think some countries - and obviously Saudi Arabia is who I'm talking about - can't have it both ways," Shelby said. "They can't support so-called charities that support terrorism on a big scale, and then pretend they're our friends and allies."