Italy’s government dismissed reports Wednesday that it paid $1 million to free two Italian aid workers who were kidnapped in Iraq and held for three weeks before being released Tuesday. Foreign Minister Franco Frattini attributed the release of Simona Pari and Simona Torretta to “all the good things Italy has done” in Iraq. But hours earlier, the head of Parliament’s foreign affairs committee and a member of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia party said flatly that money “was paid.”Full Story