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This was not the first time Ms. Khedairy had returned to her home, not the first time she had seen the wreckage. Perhaps it was the unexpected entrance of an American into her home that set her emotions tumbling. Today was the day of her rage: she ranted and wept amid the ruins of her house, picking up a tattered book here, a record album there.

"We will kill them all one day, Rumsfeld and every one of them," she said, referring to Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld. "Look at what they have done to my library."

Like many residents of Baghdad, Ms. Khedairy has now spun any number of conspiracy theories about the intentions of the Americans. She is convinced, for instance, that the bombing of her house, the ransacking of her cultural center and the looting of the national museum are evidence of an American plan to deface Iraq's culture and carry its treasures out of the country. This, from a graduate of London University, a professor who taught the literature of Britain and France.

Such theories are rampant even among the city's educated elite. Today, for instance, the chief doctor at one of the Baghdad's larger hospitals spoke about the presumed designs of the Americans on the Iraqi nation.

"Tell me," said the doctor, who asked that he not be identified, "Why do the American troops allow the looting? These people are cowards, the looters. All the soldiers have to do is fire one shot, and the looters will go away. They are cowards. And the Americans do not do this. Why?"

Ms. Khedairy's neighborhood has not yet been looted, but she thinks the day is near. Since the bombing ended, a group of her neighbors has stood guard over the houses, armed with guns, keeping the thieves away. But the Americans have begun to move closer to the neighborhood, and Ms. Khedairy is convinced that the looters will be allowed to roam freely through her home.

"They follow the tanks," Ms. Khedairy said. "The Americans come in and they let the looters do as they wish. That is what they did at the museum. That is what they did at my institute. My neighborhood is next."

Not all of Ms. Khedairy's anger is directed at foreigners; she has saved a good deal for her fellow Iraqis. As she arrived at the steps of her cultural center, she surprised a half dozen Iraqi men picking over the last of the artifacts and paintings that had not been stolen.

"My God, I'll kill you!" she growled, and the young men scampered out the door. In her anger, Ms. Khedairy picked up a piece of broken pottery and hurled it into the back of one of the men. "How could this nation produce such sons?" she wailed.

The devastation wrought by the looters is indeed complete: the books and sheet music lay scattered across the floor, the lamps and fans torn from the ceiling. Upstairs, a recent exhibit of artwork by Iraqi and Japanese children lay in tatters.

Ms. Khedairy paused before a decorative wrought-iron door, one of the few things left that still appeared intact. She fingered it, studied it, swung the thing on its hinge.

"I will have to save this," she said, "before someone takes it."