First, you have a few syntax errors. The above is a method call, so it needs to follow $.ajax({ ... }); (with parenthesis).
Secondly, you want to supply the error property as part of the object, not failure (see docs for more information).
Third, when you do bind to an error, you are supplied three parameters: jqHXR, textState, errorThrow. These arguments will supply you the details of a failed AJAX call. (More specifically, try jqXHR.status)
Alternatively, you can bind to the $.ajaxError function as well.
Update To keep this more up-to-date, you should now be following the Deferred API (as of jQuery 1.5), which would make binding to an error look something like the following:
$.ajax({ /* options */ })
.done(function( data, textStatus, jqXHR ){
// here you bind to a successful execution.
.fail(function( jqXHR, textStatus, errorThrown ){
// Here you can catch if something went wrong with the AJAX call.
})
.always(function(){
// here you can execute code after both (or either) of
// the above callbacks have executed.
});