WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The FBI sought permission to hire almost 1,900 counter-terror linguists, analysts and agents before the Sept. 11 attacks to combat a growing threat but was allowed to add just 76, former FBI Director Louis Freeh said on Tuesday.

Freeh told the national commission investigating the attacks on America that killed nearly 3,000 people that the government failed to put up the funds needed to provide expertise in the languages of the Muslim world, citing a particular shortage of Arabic and Persian speakers.

"In the budget years 2000/2001/2002, we asked for 1,895 people -- agents, linguists, analysts. We got a total of 76 people during that period," Freeh testified.

"That's not to criticize the U.S. Congress. It's not to criticize the Department of Justice. It is to focus on the fact that that was not a national priority."

Freeh said the counterterror effort particularly needed linguists, which were requested "year after year."

"We asked for the authority to hire Arabic and Farsi (Persian) speakers at a higher rate than the GS scale provided for in New York City," he said. "You can't hire an Arabic or Farsi speaker for a GS-6 salary, which is what we were relegated to."

GS-6 refers to low to mid-entry level, clerical or administrative positions, a spokesman for the Office of Personnel Management said. Currently, GS-6 salaries for the New York area range from about $32,000 to $41,600.

Salary restrictions compounded staffing problems stemming from a 22-month congressionally mandated hiring freeze in the first half of the 1990s, Freeh said.

Recruiters and senior officials say they are fully aware of the need for such specialists with "exotic" language skills, but say rigorous security screening in a limited pool of qualified candidates complicates the task.

Many applicants are also put off by the slow process that can take more than a year, especially when the private sector is offering more lucrative jobs sooner.

While the FBI was receiving a great deal of federal funding, he said it only had 3-1/2 percent of the government's counterterrorism resources, even though it was supposed to act as the "lead agency" in the United States.

In the aftermath of the hijacked airliner attacks on New York and Washington, U.S. officials from the Pentagon to the CIA often said a shortage of linguists in Arabic and other "exotic languages" was a serious national security concern.

Officials still cite a critical need for linguists, and a hefty backlog of material needing translation obtained by satellites, bugs and spies.

Memories are still fresh of two messages intercepted from suspected members of bin Laden's al Qaeda network on Sept. 10, 2001, that said, "Tomorrow is zero hour," and, "The match begins tomorrow." They were translated on Sept. 11 and only given to policy-makers on Sept. 12.