Hank Greenberg went to Washington expecting a beating by Congress yesterday for any wrongdoing in creating his AIG empire, a symbol now of the recession’s worst ills.

Instead, the 83-year-old executive tossed blame back onto the lap of the government itself and accused a handful of executives who ousted him in a boardroom coup four years ago of mismanagement and “greed.”

“Let me be clear,” Greenberg told lawmakers. “AIG’s business model did not fail — its management did.”

Greenberg fielded a barrage of angry questions with equal fervor.

When Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) launched into a tirade that “the public is outraged and very angry over AIG,” Greenberg shot back loudly, “So am I!”

Greenberg repeated his long-standing claims that AIG was a healthy company at the time he was ousted, and that its books weren’t bloated with the tainted assets that eventually brought its downfall and forced a $182.5 billion government bailout.

Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) didn’t buy it, calling his claims “questionable.”

“It is clear that the crumbling of AIG began on your watch,” Issa said.

Greenberg countered that his successors wrongly piled up the deadly risks in a London unit trading the esoteric securities. “They were greedy,” Greenberg said.

Outrage has mounted over the way AIG has used its rescue billions, such as paying nearly 100 cents on the dollar to a group of big banks for their risky bets, which never even went into default — a total of $50 billion.

Greenberg insisted those banks must give back some of the money.

He also called the federal rescue of the global company a “failed approach” that ought to be replaced with a revised plan of using more private money, thus reducing the government’s 80 percent stake in AIG.

However, the big stake has started paying off big for the first time.

Just hours after the blood-letting hearings, the stake’s value soared by $834 million when shares rose 6 percent to $1.14.

Greenberg retains about 12 percent of AIG’s shares in a private trust that AIG founded decades earlier in a stock offering.

Although AIG doesn’t own that entity, Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) asked, “Will you return that stock to taxpayers?”

Bewildered, Greenberg said, “Why. . . why would it go back to taxpayers?” The panel recessed before anyone could answer.