McLEAN, Va. -- CIA Director Michael V. Hayden yesterday applauded the debate over the agency's past use of harsh interrogation techniques, but stressed that those methods -- including the use of waterboarding -- had produced valuable results.

"I am quite happy for the agency," Mr. Hayden told reporters gathered at CIA Headquarters in Langley for what amounted to his farewell news conference before being replaced by a nominee appointed by President-elect Barack Obama. "It is an honest discussion of what techniques we should use."

Mr. Hayden, a native of Pittsburgh who was appointed CIA director in May 2006, emphasized that such drastic interrogation techniques were conducted before he took over.

"We don't do that," he said flatly. "We haven't done it since March 2003. We have no intention of doing it. And [those who question it are] looking backward.

"I was very heartened by the president-elect's statement that he's looking forward. I think that's very appropriate."

Still, Mr. Hayden contended that America is safer because the interrogations -- conducted at the behest of the Bush administration, with the blessing of Justice Department legal counsel -- produced results.

"You can't say it didn't work. These tactics worked," Mr. Hayden said. "Was it worth it? Half of our knowledge of al-Qaida … came from CIA detainees.

"The agency did none of this out of enthusiasm. It did it out of duty. And it did it with the best legal advice it had."

If, however, the new administration or Congress dictates that the CIA should follow other interrogation procedures, such as those laid out in the Army Field Manual, Mr. Hayden said, the agency would do so, "no cop-outs, no exceptions, no winks, no nods. Trust me."

The outgoing director also hailed Mr. Obama's indication that he has no interest in pursuing legal inquiries into past CIA technique. If the next administration second-guesses actions of recent CIA interrogators, Mr. Hayden said, there is a risk that future interrogators will hesitate to follow procedures out of fear of themselves being second-guessed later.

The result would be confusion and perhaps the failure to get vital information. "We have to take risks at the edge of executive authority. This is the neighborhood in which we live," he said.

"[An interrogator] must be firm in his own mind. I have no right to ask a guy to bet his kids' college education on who's going to win the next off-year election. You can't do this to these people."

Mr. Hayden, a retired Air Force general, steps down after a decade of top positions in the nation's intelligence agencies.

Mr. Obama has nominated Leon Panetta, a chief of staff to former President Bill Clinton and a former Democratic congressman from California, to head the agency.

Asked yesterday to discuss whether he had any regrets, Mr. Hayden expressed "sympathy for the people who went before, for whom doing nothing was an immoral choice."

And, he said, Osama bin Laden has not been brought to justice for the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. "We have not killed or captured him. That is a disappointment, rather than a regret," he said.

His greatest pride, he said, is that the agency is largely responsible for al-Qaida's failure to launch a major terrorist strike on U.S. soil since Sept. 11.

"That's been 2,710 days in which we were not attacked," he said. CIA employees "should take personal credit for that."