The U.S. intelligence community should send a thank you note to Kim Jong Il for North Korea's recent missile test.

It's been a long time since we've had much of an update on the progress of their program. The last actual launch was in July 2006, and it was an abject failure. Three years later, and with help from the Iranians, it appears that Kim Jong Il's rocket scientists still have a few kinks to work out, and have yet to put a satellite into orbit.

Although Dear Leader maintains that the DPRK space program is entirely peaceful, even Pollyanna wouldn't buy this propaganda. North Korea remains at war with South Korea and the U.N., and has never abandoned its dream of uniting the peninsula under its hegemony. This dream became increasingly distant throughout the late 20th century as the Soviet Union collapsed, North Korea's armed forces atrophied, and its economy so utterly failed that mass starvation killed somewhere between 1 million and 3 million of its citizens. Mr. Kim correctly assessed that acquisition of an intercontinental nuclear capability would be a game changer, and he has pursued that goal with singular determination. From his viewpoint, if he can threaten the U.S., Japan and South Korea with nuclear annihilation, he might yet achieve his ambitions and assure the survival of his regime.

How close to that goal has he come? Not very.

The ability to vaporize Omaha requires a guidance system that can take the payload to the target, a vehicle that can survive re-entry from orbit, a warhead that fits on the missile and a missile with the range to get there.

There isn't much information about guidance systems. While North Korea can drop missiles on South Korea and Japan, its ability to place its warheads above American cities is unknown, but unlikely. A survivable re-entry vehicle, the second requirement, is a moot point until they put a payload into orbit.

North Korea probably doesn't have a nuclear warhead that will fit on its missile, although it does have nuclear devices. On Oct. 9, 2006, North Korea conducted a successful underground test of a plutonium bomb. It may now have a half dozen of them. Plutonium bombs are certainly destructive — the citizens of Nagasaki will attest to that — but they are too big and heavy to put on a missile. A nuclear device based on highly enriched uranium is what fits nicely in the nosecone. Although it is unlikely that North Korea has a viable uranium warhead, we don't really know. A March 31 report by the commercial intelligence firm International Crisis Group claims that North Korea might already possess nuclear warheads suitable for its Rodong missile, an intermediate-range ballistic missile that is only a threat to South Korea and Japan. There isn't much detail to back up this report, and no one thinks the North Koreans have a uranium warhead that fits in an ICBM. However, they are working on the problem and getting help from Iran, whose efforts to enrich uranium are rather well documented. They aren't there yet.

Can they throw the payload far enough? There have been all sorts of wild claims that North Korean missiles can hit Hawai'i, or even the West Coast. Until Saturday, we really didn't know, since the last data came from the abortive July 2006 test. Intelligence officers have been dying to know. That is why, even though we have the capability to do so, we certainly weren't about to shoot down the North Korean missile. Here's the answer: they are doing only a little better than they were three years ago.

While it will be some time before we can fully assess what Mr. Kim has actually accomplished, there can be no doubt as to his ultimate objective. A day of reckoning will come. This test tells our intelligence agencies that the day will not come soon.

Retired Col. Thomas D. Farrell, a Honolulu resident, served as an Army intelligence officer in Iraq from June 2005 to May 2006. He wrote this commentary for The Advertiser.