From this decision, now admitted to be a blunder, date all the troubles in which we, Iraq and the League are involved today. It left the Assyrian country, except a very small area, within the Turkish frontier, and the Turks will not have the Assyrians back; it left over 30,000 Assyrians without homes in Iraq; and left Great Britain and Iraq with an insoluble problem. The story of the Assyrians from now on makes depressing reading, culminating in the present situation. Attempts were made to domicile them in the northern part of Iraq, and a certain number of Assyrians were settled; but, generally speaking, the problem was far from solved when, in 1932, the decision to give up the mandate was taken. Assyrians all along insisted that they would not be safe after the British left, scattered as they were in small parties among the Kurds. When the relinquishment of the mandate became a certainty, they took a desperate step to bring their case to notice.

-- British Brigadier-General J. G. Browne
The Assyrians: A Debt of Honour, 1937