Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice made a surprise visit to Iraq on Thursday. Her landing in Baghdad was delayed for nearly an hour because of a mortar attack near the airport. Rice maintained that Iraqis are making progress. However a leading Republican Senator who just returned from Iraq disagrees. John Warner — the chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee — said Iraq has taken steps backwards and that the United States should consider a change of course if the security situation doesn’t improve in the next two or three months. Earlier in the week, the Pentagon announced that the number of planted bombs had reached an all-time high in Iraq. Since Saturday, 24 U.S. soldiers have been killed.