Answer: He never left the hotel

Question: “How did the CIA's special envoy miss Zahawie's trip to Niger?” Here’s Christopher Hitchens in “Clueless Joe Wilson”:

In other words (I am prepared to keep on repeating this until at least one cow comes home), Joseph Wilson went to Niger in 2002 to investigate whether or not the country had renewed its uranium-based relationship with Iraq, spent a few days (by his own account) sipping mint tea with officials of that country who were (by his wife's account) already friendly to him, and came back with the news that all was above-board. Again to repeat myself, this must mean either that A) he did not know that Zahawie had come calling or B) that he did know but didn't think it worth mentioning that one of Saddam's point men on nukes had been in town. In neither case, it seems to me, should he be trusted with another mission that requires any sort of curiosity.

Somehow Joe Wilson’s rank ineptness in the Niger mission has taken a back seat to whether his wife was outed by Scooter Libby or Robert Novak, and the press has been happy to play along.