"In the week after Marines killed 24 civilians in Haditha, Iraq, an angry group of townspeople went to the local military base alleging a "crime of war" and demanding an investigation, a military prosecutor said Friday. The town council, the mayor and 14 other town leaders spent a "heated and emotional" 45 minutes with Marine officers. They presented an account of the deaths and a written demand for an investigation, translated into English, the prosecutor said at an investigative hearing here. But though the Iraqis met with the Marine battalion's commander, Lt. Col. Jeffrey Chessani, and two other officers, news of the meeting did not travel up the chain of command as it should have, a two-star general testified Friday. An investigation was not launched until four months later."