also frustrated him. Gaddafi held a standoff with US officials in November 2009, refusing to send a shipment of Highly Enriched Uranium back to Russia unless the United States renewed its commitment to cooperation with Libya. Libyan civil war Activities Saif was allegedly supportive of the Tunisian Revolution and cautiously optimistic of the 2011 Egyptian revolution in the early phase of the Arab Spring. On 19 February, several days after the Arab Spring came to Libya, Saif al-Islam announced the creation of a commission of inquiry into the violence, chaired by a Libyan judge, as reported on state television. He stated that the commission was intended to be "for members of Libyan and foreign organizations of human rights" and that it would "investigate the circumstances and events that have caused many victims." He also circulated an op-ed to several American newspapers calling for reform and a new constitution, but every newspaper rejected it. Later in the month, he went on state television to deny allegations that the government had launched airstrikes against Libyan cities and stated that the number of protesters killed had been exaggerated. On 20 February 2011, Saif al-Islam Gaddafi delivered an address to the nation on Libyan state television stating that if no agreement could be found between protesters and the government "thousands of deaths, and rivers of blood will run through Libya". He also insisted that his father remained in charge with the army's backing and would "fight until the last man, the last woman, the last bullet." Speaking on Libyan state TV, Saif al-Islam blamed the civil war on tribal factions and Islamists acting on their own agendas, drunken and drugged. He promised reforms, and said the alternative would be civil war blocking trade and oil money and leading to the country being taken over by foreigners. He closed by saying, "We will not let Al Jazeera, Al Arabiya and BBC trick us." Oliver Miles, a former British Ambassador to Libya, disagreed with his assessment while public intellectual Benjamin Barber defended Saif as a reformer and called for Western engagement with Saif as the best way to end the bloodshed. In an interview with ABC News reporter Christiane Amanpour, Saif al-Islam denied that his father's regime was killing civilians. On 21 February 2011, the World Economic Forum cut off contacts with Saif al-Islam and suspended him from the Forum of Young Global Leaders. On 19