Kofi Annan, the secretary-general of the United Nations, said he wanted next week"s summit of 170-plus heads of state and government in New York to be another "San Francisco moment"—a chance to recapture the spirit of renewal and optimism that accompanied the birth of the United Nations in California 60 years ago. He is not likely to get his way. After more than a year of investigation, Paul Volcker, a former head of America"s Federal Reserve, chose this of all weeks to publish his report on what went wrong with the UN"s oil-for-food programme in Iraq. It does not make pretty reading. The programme achieved its basic aim, which was to allow an Iraq under sanctions to sell some oil so that some of the basic food and medical needs of its people could still be met. But Mr. Volcker"s team confirms that the programme was riddled with waste, inefficiency and corruption, including among UN staff at head quarters as well as in the field. As a result, Saddam Hussein"s regime succeeded in squeezing a total illicit income of some $10 billion from the scheme, about $8 billion from smuggling and the rest from surcharges and kickbacks. Ever since the Security Council failed to endorse the war against Iraq, Mr. Annan"s critics have been calling for him to resign or be sacked for his part in the oil-for-food programme. They have had two arguments. One is that he is himself guilty of malfeasance. The other is that even if he isn"t, he was the man at the top and should therefore take the blame for a scandal that unfolded on his watch. On both counts, a case can be made that the Volcker report offers him an escape. On the first count, Mr. Volcker has found no evidence at all that the secretary-general himself did anything corrupt, even though several people close to him plainly did. On the second, the report does not say whether Mr. Annan should go for having presided over such chaos and venality. It does say that corruption down the line reflected the absence of "a strong organizational ethic" that should have permeated the leadership. But it also argues that Mr. Annan was not responsible for everything that went wrong. Though nominally the UN"s administrative boss, neither he nor his predecessors were chosen for managerial skills or provided with the tools—such as the ability to hire and fire without political interference—to be effective managers. In the case of oil-for-food, the Security Council tried to keep control through a sanctions committee of national diplomats. Having neither the Security Council nor the secretariat in clear command was a recipe for "the evasion of responsibility at all levels". If the UN were a company whose boss had made a hash of things, The Economist would call for the top man"s head. Removing a boss is a good way for shareholders to show that they want change. But since the UN is not a firm, sacking Mr. Annan over the oil-for-food programme would send the wrong signal: that it is his person and not—as the Volcker report stresses—the structure of the organization that is at the root of the problem. And because the UN is a political organization, ousting Mr. Annan would send a political signal, too. It would be read by many UN members as a punishment inflicted on the UN by America"s more strident Republicans as revenge for the Security Council"s failure to support the British and American invasion of Iraq in 2003.

单选题 According to the text, the optimistic mood seems to be

单选题 The word "reading" in Paragraph 2 denotes ______.

单选题 The phrase "made a hash of things"(Line 1, Paragraph 6) most probably means ______.

单选题 It can be inferred in the last paragraph that

单选题 What is the relationship of paragraph 4 and 5 to paragraph 3?