Baghdad, Iraq ? In a surprise visit to Iraq on Saturday, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice met with Iraqi officials to get an assessment of the Baghdad security plan and to gauge the prospects for reconciliation among the warring factions in Iraq.

Following her meetings, Rice declared herself “impressed” with the steps being taken.

With support waning in the United States for the war effort and for financing future reconstruction of Iraq, the stakes for success by the new Iraqi government couldn’t be higher.

Rice spent some six hours in the highly protected Green Zone meeting with Iraqi officials before heading to Jerusalem for talks with other Middle East officials.

The two key issues that occupied Rice’s briefings were the security plan in Baghdad, which is under way now, and pending revisions to the Iraqi constitution to give more political and economic clout to Sunnis, who were protected by Saddam Hussein’s dictatorship but who have been excluded since the U.S. invasion.

A new oil law would evenly distribute oil revenues among the Sunnis, Shia and Kurds and would permit low-level members of Saddam’s Baathist party to hold government jobs.

During the deliberations over Iraq’s original constitution, officials left an oil-sharing plan ambiguous to speed adoption of the constitution. The new measure, while still being drafted, is controversial. Kurds are objecting to a per-capita split of oil revenue, saying their oil-rich territory in northern Iraq deserved a greater share.

Following her meeting with Iraqi politicians, including Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, President Jalal Talabani and Vice President Tariq al-Hashemi, Rice said she was “impressed with what we’ve seen thus far of the commitment of the Iraqi leadership to the Baghdad security plan.” She also called the plan “even handed.” Sunnis fear that the plan may target them and leave Shiite militias close to the government unchecked.

Rice said the law changes were necessary and are a “proxy for something bigger … what is going to be the attitude of the majority force to the minorities.”

Since the security plan went into effect this past week, checkpoints have been set up throughout the capital to search vehicles. Raids are ongoing.

Daily reports from the Baghdad Operational Command show that confiscations of weapons and arrests in Sunni neighborhoods far outweigh those in Shiite neighborhoods thus far. In Sadr City, a sprawling Shiite slum and the largest Mahdi Army stronghold, only 13 ammunition magazines for rifles were confiscated. Officials did not say whether the magazines were full of bullets or empty.

Asked if the United States and Iraq had a contingency plan if the security measures were unsuccessful, Rice insisted that the plan needed time to work and that the military would be adjusting its efforts to changes in the streets.

“It’s not going to be one day and everybody can declare victory,” she said. “It’s just going to go on. There are going to be bad days for the security plan when violence is up, not down. … Thus far I would have to say the performance has been quite good.”

In her meetings with political leaders, Rice urged them to finish the oil law to show the Iraqi people that the government can make a unified decision for the good of a nation not just for a sect or ethnicity.

While both the Kurdish north and Shiite south are oil rich lands, the Sunni regions have little of the resource. The draft law has not been officially presented to the parliament but Rice said she was assured the law was close to being passed.

“It’s a question of, is this going to be a unified country that shares in the resources for all the people?” she said. “I did say to my colleagues that I’ve heard that it’s almost complete before and I hope that this time it is almost complete. As in, complete.”