Ijaz urged Romney and other presidential candidates to "actively begin searching" for American Muslims and Arab Americans to serve in Cabinet posts to diminish the "risk (of) promulgating policies that once again put the U.S. straight in the sights of the terrorists who seek to bring America down."

In remarks to reporters in Florida on Tuesday, Romney said he was responding to the narrow question about whether he needed to have a Muslim in his Cabinet to combat radical Islamic jihad.

"I said no, I don't think you need a Muslim in the Cabinet to take on radical jihad any more than we needed a Japanese American to understand the threat that was coming from Japan or something of that nature," Romney said.

Romney said he hasn't "given a lot of thought" to prospective Cabinet selections at this point in the presidential campaign.

"I don't have boxes I check off in terms of ethnicity," Romney added. "Instead, I would choose people based on their merits . . . I'm open to having people of any faith, ethnic group."

---

Hearst Newspapers contributed to this report.