last updated: Saturday 5 January 2008, 08:41am

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Barack Obama wins Iowa caucus

Barack Obama has beaten former First Lady Hillary Clinton to the Democrat Presidential nomination in the important Iowa caucus in the US.

The caucus is the first stage of the US election campaign and Mr Obama's victory in Iowa is a big step in his bid to become the country's first black president.

He portrayed his decisive first-place finish in the Iowa Democratic caucuses as a 'defining moment' that he said would lead the way to change in Washington and an end to the war in Iraq.

The 46-year-old told supporters: 'They said this day would never come. They said our sights were set too high.

'But on this January night, on this defining moment in history, you have done what the cynics said we couldn't do. You did what the state of New Hampshire can do in five days.'

Mr Obama won about 38 per cent of the vote, comfortably ahead of former North Carolina Senator John Edwards and Senator Clinton.

He vowed that, if elected, he would be the 'president that ends this war in Iraq and finally brings our troops home, who restores our moral standing, who understands that 9/11 is not a way to scare up votes but a challenge that should unite America and the world against the common threats of the 21st Century'.

He added: 'Hope is the bedrock of this nation, the belief that our destiny will not be written for us but by us, by all those men and woman who are not content to settle for the world as it is, who have the courage to remake the world as it should be.'

Mr Obama's win there gives him crucial momentum heading into New Hampshire, which holds its first-in-the-nation primary on Tuesday.

Iowa has chosen Mike Huckabee as its Republican candidate. The former Baptist preacher has over-taken other better-known rivals.

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