Exrigger,
For the servicings/maintenance being carried out in Afghanistan and Iraq, this will more likely be due to Contingency Servicing (CTY). Next to some items in the 5A1 there is appended CTY, these equate to the minimum servicing/maintenance requirements while in a war zone and these would, approximately, account for those sort of percentage drops in the times. If the guys are able to do more at any given time they can, like ADFs/Lims/mods/EIs, this reduction has not got anything to do with manpower availability it is all to do with maximising aircraft availablity.
Have things got that bad or are you surmising? My understanding is that such a "relaxation" wasn't even used in GW1 or 2?
sw