Obama intervened over crumbling Iraqi dam as U.S. concern grew

By Warren Strobel, Jonathan Landay and Phil Stewart WASHINGTON (Reuters) - On Jan. 21, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry met with Iraq's prime minister in Davos, Switzerland, and handed him a personal note from President Barack Obama pleading for urgent action. Obama's confidential message to Haider al-Abadi, which was confirmed to Reuters by two U.S. officials and has not been previously reported, was not about Islamic State or Iraq's sectarian divide. The president's personal intervention ind