Calling the media to the mat on their Bait and switch

American media figure Alan Nathan, writing in FrontPageMag takes the Washington Post to task on silly conclusions it draws from the Volker report on the U.N. oil for food program. The Post uses a lame distraction tactic: make it into a complicated soap opera so that the scale of responsibility for a minor party disguises the actual miscreant. Their headline shoud say: "Attentive reader left with head spinning." It's either that or someone pull a "nothing left to see here folks" apporach which humiliates the author at the sight of the first sore thumb.

Question: if it’s a “preliminary report,” how can you conclude that the greatest amount of smuggling wasn’t connected to the UN – it’s preliminary! Unless you took Telepathy 101 at Clairvoyance U, how can such an exonerating determination be made?
Additionally, if we are to make assumptions, how can the UN director of the program in question (now shown to have been on the take) be anything but proof of the UN having everything to do with the smuggling? He was the UN!