WASHINGTON  Maurice R. Greenberg, the former chairman of the American International Group, said Thursday that the government’s $170 billion bailout had failed and that taxpayers would have been better off letting the company go bankrupt.

“It is clear that the current approach has not worked and cannot work in today’s environment,” Mr. Greenberg, who was ousted from A.I.G. in 2005, told the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. “A.I.G., in my judgment, in the current plan, will not pay the taxpayers back.”

Refusing to accept any personal blame for his former company’s collapse, Mr. Greenberg insisted that A.I.G.’s problems stemmed from mismanagement after he left and that the Treasury and Federal Reserve had made things worse by trying to break the business up and sell it off in pieces.

He also disputed the statements of both the Treasury secretary, Timothy F. Geithner, and the chairman of the Federal Reserve, Ben S. Bernanke, that letting the company go bankrupt would wreak further havoc with the economy.