"I was attracted to him in the very beginning as someone who was extraordinarily intelligent, thoughtful, and had a remarkably broad and deep grasp of the key foreign policy challenges of the day," she said. Ms. Rice said she was drawn to him in part because of his early and vocal opposition to the Iraq war. She had also spoken out on the war before the American invasion, and she said she respected Mr. Obama for making "the same unpopular choice I had made," despite what she described as a "huge amount of pressure in Washington to go along with or support the war."