Had to let go? Of the ones let go, the overwhelming majority were released because they were unimportant, or because their home countries wanted them back, not because they were innocent.
A lot of play was given to the Uyghur detainees who were eventually determined to not be enemy combatants. Innocent? In reality, they definitely were combatants, but their enemy was China, not the U.S. (The “War on Terror” is only a name; we’re not legally at war with all terrorists.) We had to hold them a long time only because they didn’t want to be sent home to China (which was eager to get them back).
You’re mixing up a bunch of memes. The innocent cab driver was at Bagram, not Gitmo, after being fingered by an Afghan officer later found to be working for the Taliban. There was never a big chance he would have gone to Gitmo.
The “bounty hunter” meme was first pushed by a Gitmo lawyer. He was using fact that the U.S. paid big bucks for Bin Laden’s driver to make it sound like the rest were all captured by bounty hunters, too. Were there bounty payments? Yes, of course, but not really that big a percentage, unless you want to say that the Afghan and Pakistani militaries were working as bounty hunters.
There were a few innocents, but they were exceptions. Most were affiliated with Al Qaeda or the Taliban in some capacity. Even one the famous “Tipton Three” later admitted he had been training with the Taliban, and their neighbors said they had a reputation as being extremists. Strangely, those things didn’t make it into the movie about them.
