“But POWs and captives are held for military reasons, outside of the scope of the CIC.”
You may be right, but that seems like a contradictory statement to me. How can one be the commander in chief (CIC) and not have command authority over the “military reasons” for holding captives? Isn’t that an unconstitutional limit on the president’s authority to command?
Not really. The CIC has the authority to direct what the military can do as in policy, but to tell the military how to do it is outside of his scope with the exception of collateral damage. The treatment of captives is governed by the UCMJ and Geneva Conventions. The monkey in the wrench to all of this is that those in captivity since 9/11 are not protected by the GC because they were not in uniform. This is why there is the argument to handle their cases in civil court. By right, we could have shot them all and been within the authority of the GC.