The rationale is that we are at war.
You don’t litigate war. Peacetime laws don’t apply. If they applied, you aren’t at war. If you still are trying to litigate a problem then either you aren’t at war or you seriously don’t understand that you are at war.
There are various political reasons why they are doing this, but there is also the lawyerly conceit that if lawyers haven’t approved of something and aren’t in charge of something it mustn’t be done.
War is the state of affairs that exists when lawyers are not sufficient to contain a conflict. When that day comes, you admit that you are at war, and you resort to violence that is not permitted under normal peacetime law. When you have slaughtered your opponents such that lawyers can now handle any remaining conflicts, you are no longer at war and you put away the heavy weaponry and you let the lawyers resume their normal functions.
Mixing lawyers and war is to distort both and to miss the difference between the two functions. You should not mix them.
>>CIA officers.
Well then, the ACLU works to the benefit of the Pentagon and the turf battle between the CIA and the Pentagon would result in the Pentagon having control over all drone operations.
Then no issue, tada!