But the possibility that the military had used the international news media to rack up a bigger body count in Gaza generated sharp questions for Colonel Conricus in the conference call. Israeli officials insisted that the call be held off the record, but a Times reporter who did not join the call obtained a recording of it from another news organization. Representatives of The Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, National Public Radio and Agence France-Presse, all of which had mistakenly reported a ground invasion early Friday, peppered him with questions about whether they had been turned into accessories to the military, why it had taken hours for the invasion report to be reversed, and how they would be able to trust the military’s statements going forward. Colonel Conricus, a veteran officer and spokesman with a reputation for precision in what he knows and doesn’t know, said there had been no “attempt to try to fool anybody or to cause you to write anything that isn’t true,” adding: “I can understand that it may look differently.” He called it “frankly embarrassing.”