The Pentagon has pushed back an important test of the country’s antimissile system until later this year.

No worries, though. The system will still be deployed before the Nov. 2 election despite the fact it has major components that are not yet operational and has never knocked down a realistic target.

Missile defense has been a major Bush administration policy since the 2000 campaign. It was the president’s top military priority before the attacks of Sept. 11 and remains on the must-do list.

The technology, however, is not as advanced as the political will to deploy the system. According to one Pentagon estimate, the system may be able to intercept an incoming missile only once out of five times and even that’s a big maybe. The antimissile missile has not been flight-tested, and major technological changes have been made since the last flight test, which was two years ago.

The General Accounting Office, which conducts investigations for Congress, recommended in April that more realistic targeting and flight tests be conducted before the system is deployed. That hasn’t happened.

The program is expensive and has shown little progress. Next year alone, the president has proposed spending $10.7 billion on it. While the goal is worthwhile – to protect the United States from a limited ballistic missile attack – there’s no evidence the system works.

Before putting the interceptors in the field as a backdrop for an election, the Pentagon should conduct realistic testing. Otherwise, all that’s being deployed is an expensive idea. Meanwhile, important investments in homeland security aren’t being made and the Navy is considering cuts to its destroyer program, a proven weapons system. It doesn’t make sense.