The director of national intelligence, John Negroponte, has created new ”mission managers” for Iran and North Korea, adding those two countries to a short list of top-priority challenges for American intelligence agencies. Iran and North Korea join counterterrorism and nuclear counterproliferation as areas of focus for senior management posts that were recommended last year by a high-level presidential commission. The new managers for Iran and North Korea will be responsible, among other things, for identifying and filling gaps in intelligence on those two countries, Negroponte`s office said Wednesday in announcing the appointments. Joseph DeTrani, who has served most recently as the American special envoy to the six-party talks on North Korea, has been given the rank of ambassador and is taking on the North Korea portfolio; S. Leslie Ireland, a career intelligence officer and Middle East specialist, is to become mission manager for Iran. DeTrani and Ireland are to provide strategic leadership over American intelligence agencies` work on North Korea and Iran, whose nuclear weapons programs remain a major concern of the Bush administration, in part because so little is known about them. In its report last year, the Robb-Silberman commission, an independent panel appointed by President Bush, described American intelligence on Iran and North Korea as woefully inadequate. The other two mission managers appointed by Negroponte to focus on counterterrorism and counterproliferation have already assumed their roles . Negroponte has said that the mission managers have his full proxy and should be expected to play the same role that he would if he could devote his full attention to a single issue. Ireland was most recently the executive assistant to Porter Goss, the CIA director. According to her official biography, she has, over a 20-year career, served as deputy chief for Arab-Israeli issues and special adviser for Iranian issues. She was also country director for Iran and Kuwait in the office of the Secretary of Defense.