So the NYT did backtrack on the percent-of-change error described yesterday without assigning blame.  That's fine.  But the correction suggests another big story that we have only seen parts of.  That is, of all the U.S. presence in Iraq — military and contractors — how many and what proportion are actually on the streets and how many and in what capacity are in support categories. 

[New York Times] Corrections: For the Record
Published: May 28, 2007 [Monday]
A front-page headline on Saturday about
concepts being developed by the Bush administration to reduce United
States combat forces in Iraq by as much as half next year referred
imprecisely to the overall effect on troop levels. As the story
indicated, removing half of the 20 combat brigades now in Iraq by the
end of 2008, one of the ideas under consideration, would cut the total
number of troops there by about one-third, from 146,000 to roughly
100,000, not by 50 percent. That is because many of the troops that
would remain in Iraq are in training or support units, not in combat
forces. (Go to Article)