With Few N. Korea Facts, a Rumor Got Launched

SEOUL — The shocking rumor surfaced a few years back: A warhead from a North Korean ballistic missile had been found in the Alaskan tundra.

It made a few headlines before the U.S. Missile Defense Agency dismissed the story as a complete fabrication.

Nevertheless, the report still bounces around the Internet, a favorite of conservative blog sites. Its staying power illustrates the extent of the confusion about the North Korean weapons program.

The series of missile tests North Korea conducted this week is unlikely to ease the confusion, and might even add to it.

Even among the experts, there is no consensus on how much Americans need to worry about North Korea.

In one camp, alarmists say it is only a matter of time before the continental United States is within reach of North Korean missiles, perhaps even armed with nuclear warheads. Others scoff at the notion that the dysfunctional communist country -- which admittedly can barely manufacture a working bicycle -- could pose a credible military threat to the United States.

"Elvis found at South Pole," one skeptic wrote dismissively on the Seoul-based Korea Times' website, where the reported find was announced in a March 2003 article headlined "NK Missile Warhead Found in Alaska."

The skeptics point to the embarrassing failure of the long-range Taepodong 2 missile in this week's tests. The first booster stage of the Taepodong exploded 42 seconds after takeoff.

In addition, at least two of the North Korean missiles veered off course and landed in Russian territorial waters near the far eastern town of Nakhodka. The mistake infuriated one of Pyongyang's last friends.

North Korea "has completely discredited itself in the eyes of the world public," Ivan Safranchuk, director of the Moscow bureau of the Washington-based Center for Defense Information, told a Russian radio station.

Then again, the North Koreans showed that for all their shortcomings in guidance systems and technology, they have guts.

Joseph S. Bermudez Jr., a leading American expert on the North Korean military, says the failure of the Taepodong should not cause anyone to breathe much easier.

"The fact that they launched so many missiles at once shows that they have the nerves and, at least in their short-range and medium-range missiles, operational readiness and capability," Bermudez said.