These where clan militias fighting for a headstanrt in the proxxy civil war to come. There is no iraq. Its a iranian proxxy with a sunni province and a basically split of kurdish region. That "nation" never existed except in western maps and heads. Those "freedom fighters" where the basis for isis and the iranian militias. None where patriots, just in it for the family wearing the state as skinsuit. They thoroughly disproved all neoliberal cultural ideals about universal nneeds and wants.
If we follow your logic, then I'd argue that similarly, there's no countries in the world. In particular, there's no United States, it's land colonized by Europeans who came to that land and slaughtered its indigenous people and claimed it for themselves.
The western culture forms meta families. We ostracize the sexual others like everyone else, but they form a nation wide "meta" family that connects everyone to everyone, allowing for the traditional clan family to flap open and dissappear with only nuclear families remaining. Oh and they form a ruling caste with working institutions. Western societies are one huge artifical clan.
Yes, for the sole reason that it's just a label assigned by an invading enemy government.
The problem is that the label is used in media to assign moral judgement, when it's just a political proscription that is typically assigned for entirely geopolitical reasons. Almost every country occupying a foreign territory, or is engaged in war with a group, or even another country, calls military action of the other side terrorism.
It doesn't mean anything. If it is to carry a moral judgement, it needs to be based on universally applied principles. It takes 5 seconds of thinking to see that it's absolutely not based on universally applied principles.
Terrorists specifically target civilian or government targets to make a statement or a demand. Those Iraqis were targeting American soldiers. The term doesn't apply here, no matter how badly the occupier wants to impose it on those defending their country.